How Many of Us Can Stand Solitude?

Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.

Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.

Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion, may be one reason solitude is neglected.

If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.

But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.

Maybe this busy, hard wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our natures, is as important to inner growth as is food to our physical bodies.

We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.

 

Autumn Rest

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins; “God’s Grandeur”)

We’ve had rain this year, and the trees have responded. Now they’re shedding their summer bounty, leaves floating down slowly, taking their time. I know spring has its glories, but I love autumn. Autumn goes with leaf raking time and the discovery of good books in the library. More people, some from summer trips, fill the pews on Sunday morning in our church.

We go for a walk and spot a deer and her fawns in the nearby woods.

Afternoons, and we meander to our small downtown and meet teenagers checking out where to grab a snack after school.

I know that after winter rains, I will welcome spring every bit it as much as I now welcome fall’s quietness after summer’s activities. But for now, I love autumn best.

Pray and Take Care of Your Neighbors

            Friday morning, October 4, 2025

I’m writing before I’ve checked today’s news. I don’t know what’s going on in Washington, D.C. or in Seattle, Washington, the nearest city to my home, or in any other place on the globe. When I checked yesterday, U.S. government offices were still closed, and people were protesting in various places in the U.S. Various threats were made by various people, political groups, and political leaders.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the time the government shut down when I was stationed at a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia in the early part of this century (an age ago, it seems.) We were concerned about people needing emergency visas or new passports to travel to the U.S. How closed were we to those folks? And were we stuck forever in our foreign posts, with no orders coming out of the State Department? Eventually, things were sorted out, and normalcy more or less returned.

We’re concerned now about where federal troops may be stationed in the United States and who of our neighbors may be carried off and forcibly returned to their countries of origin, even if they may face persecution there for their political or religious beliefs. We don’t know what to do about our seeming inability to live within our means.

Pray and take care of your neighbors until we sort things out.

 

A Sense of Mission

In my novel, A Sense of Mission, the orphaned Kaitlin, just entering adolescence, explains why she has a hard time trusting the good times in her life. Influenced by the tragedy of her parents’ deaths, she says it’s “like some—monster—some weird creature from Lord of the Rings or something. Standing at this door that’s cracked half open. He’s staring at me while I’m feasting at a banquet.” She’s always scared they’ll disappear, as some of her good times did when her parents were killed.

Nothing is wrong with enjoying an occasional banquet. Jesus enjoyed banquets, even as he journeyed toward the cross.

Nevertheless, if we have experienced a true banquet, with people we love and enjoy being with, we may understand how powerful is the system that opposes the kinds of banquets Jesus talked about—those for the poor and hungry and imprisoned.

Ultimately, it isn’t about consumer spending or making America great or how many toys we can accumulate before we die. It’s about seeking to do good, even understanding that good may be overwhelmed at times.

 

How Many of Us Can Stand Solitude?

Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.

Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.

Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion may be one reason solitude is neglected.

If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.

But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.

Maybe this busy, hard-wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our personalities, is as important to inner growth as food is to our physical bodies.

We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.

 

Blessed Solitude

How Many of Us Can Stand Solitude?

Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.

Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.

Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion, may be one reason solitude is neglected.

If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.

But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.

Maybe this busy, hard wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our natures, is as important to inner growth as is food to our physical bodies.

We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.

 

 

 

Choosing the Imperfect

An interviewer for The Sun asked the writer, Jack Miles: “By signing up for an organized faith, am I not rejecting other religious truths?”

Miles answered, “Well, any choice limits us. You can’t practice religion in general; you have to practice one religion. You can’t marry all women or all men; you have to marry one person. OK, you might be a bigamist, but there are limits. And where there are limits, there are choices.”

We choose between imperfect candidates in an election, but we have to finally vote. Not to vote is to scorn the precious right to collectively choose our leaders.

We choose a faith for the sake of meaning and purpose and direction in our lives. We choose between admittedly imperfect and incomplete choices, for none of us has perfect knowledge, but even choosing to be an atheist is a faith choice.

To choose is not, or should not, be the denigration of what is not chosen. The fact that we are fallible human beings means we honor the different choices of others.

But we have need of spiritual choices so as not to waste our precious lives in aimlessness.

Cultural Concoction

Try growing up in the early post-World War II culture of Middle Tennessee, then add early adulthood in a rapidly changing deep South college followed by several early marriage years lived between rural Tennessee and big city Chicago. After that, stir in several years of a U.S. Foreign Service career in the Middle East and Washington, D.C. Then add a move to a Pacific Northwest island community. How’s that for a life of change?

Well, if the one constant in your life is the compulsion to write fiction (mostly) to capture the ideas that keep bubbling up through all this, you do have plenty of material.

None of this has led to a particularly successful writing career. I’ve not written a best-seller or anything near it, despite abundant material.

I don’t think, though, that, even if I had tried, I would have been able not to write. Gardeners garden, teachers teach, writers write.

I am so grateful that no matter how successful I may or may not be, I had and have people in my life who cared and care about me and the world around us. It really is, of course, about the caring. If we are cared for and learn to care about the people in our lives, even extending that care to desperate people as we are given opportunity, then we are successful in what counts.

Five Suggestions for Dealing With That Annoying Telemarketer

1. Tell them you are so glad they called because now you have someone to share your sorrow at the death of Creepy, your beloved pet tarantula, which you will then begin to detail.

2. Use them to let off steam about whichever political party has recently upset you.

3. Share your ancestry—how proud you are of your something great grandfather who served as a cook in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

4. Tell them about your recently discovered interest in lobotomy. (Don’t know what that is? Make something up.)

5. Ask them if they have ever talked to a being from outer space like you recently did. Begin sharing your experience.

Choosing the Imperfect

An interviewer for The Sun asked the writer, Jack Miles: “By signing up for an organized faith, am I not rejecting other religious truths?”

Miles answered, “Well, any choice limits us. You can’t practice religion in general; you have to practice one religion. You can’t marry all women or all men; you have to marry one person. OK, you might be a bigamist, but there are limits. And where there are limits, there are choices.”

We choose between imperfect candidates in an election, but we have to finally vote. Not to vote is to scorn the precious right to collectively choose our leaders.

We choose a faith for the sake of meaning and purpose and direction in our lives. We choose between admittedly imperfect and incomplete choices, for none of us has perfect knowledge, but even choosing to be an atheist is a faith choice.

To choose is not, or should not, be the denigration of what is not chosen. The fact that we are fallible human beings means we honor the different choices of others.

But we have need of spiritual choices so as not to waste our precious lives in aimlessness.

The Blessings—and Curses—of New Inventions

The invention of moveable type opened a world of affordable books to anyone who could read, not just an elite leadership. But lies as well as truth could be printed and spread more widely and cheaply.

Automobiles allowed us to visit places we only dreamed of and expanded our horizons. Used in large numbers, they contributed to pollution and armed conflicts over oil.

Television gave us access to a wider world. It also led to less physical exercise for many of us and less interaction with others.

Cheaper ways of producing and transporting food mean fewer of us go hungry. Some of us also gain unhealthy weight because we eat more readily available junk food.

And because of the internet, we gain information instantly. However, we may neglect to develop deeper truths that might come through reading and studying a subject on our own. We can follow news instantly. We can read about anything that interests us. However, if we don’t exercise self-discipline, we end up using all the time we saved with a computer to reading stuff we don’t need, probably more than the past generation spent in front of the television set.

The many inventions of the digital age still call for that elusive habit known as self-discipline.

So, What Do You Mean by “Christian” Nation?

Growing up, I lived, perhaps, in a place fairly close to a Christian nation—at least, if you mean where the Christian Bible was read every day in my public school class before lessons began. And, if you mean Christianity was the default, and you wouldn’t dare run for public office before checking the boxes of Christianity.

Of course, the water fountains, when I was a preschooler, were double—one for “colored” and one for “white.”

Thankfully, the double water fountains disappeared. The lines between the races, however, did not disappear. I was in high school before segregated school systems were ruled unconstitutional. And we all know that, for practical purposes, housing segregation remained.

Please understand: I think a nation where people loved God with all their being and their neighbors as themselves would be a great place to live. That’s not usually what we mean by “Christian” nation though. It has to do with outer practices: Bibles verses being read, not necessarily followed, for example.

We so often go with outer practices, not ones of the heart. Freedom of religion means no one religion is forced on anyone.

Christianity, like any other religion, would compete. How Christians lived, not how they preached, would be the deciding factor as to its spread. Come to think of it, I think that’s what happened when it began.

A Need for Youth

A community needs a continuing source of new members in order to flourish. Otherwise, over time, it stagnates and dies.

For obvious reasons, the only community assured of continuing renewal is the family. It’s the only community which creates new members—provided young women and men continue to join in responsible relationships.

Simply having babies doesn’t count. Babies and children need care from parents and the larger community. The young are helpless and cannot flourish without care. Children without care drain a community’s resources.

Other communities besides the family also may welcome children. Religious communities are often gatherers of the young. Recently, the growth of youth with no religious affiliation has led to some decline of these communities.

Today, associative types of communities—popularized by digital membership—grow rapidly. So do casual relationships.

How will we meet our needs for the more traditional physical and emotional joining?

America’s Decline?

A popular question in current political and news magazines asks: “Is America a declining nation?” Have we, after wielding perhaps the greatest power in the western world since the Roman Empire, finally gone over the top and are now started on our way down?

An article in Foreign Affairs discusses this question in “The End of the Long American Century; Trump and the Sources of U.S. Power (” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2025.) President Donald Trump, the authors say, “misses a major dimension of power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. This goal can be accomplished by coercion, payment, or attrition. The first two are hard power; the third is soft power. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power, but over the long term, soft power often prevails.”

America certainly made mistakes in the last third of the twentieth century, when the Soviet Union declined and disappeared while western nations increased economically and politically. However, most of the world saw the United States as basically a force for good in a struggle with the Soviet bloc. I have in my files a picture of young Europeans clustered around American diplomats visiting Europe shortly after the Soviet Union fell, the young people eager to discuss ideas with them.

We and the allied powers, survivors of World War II, had now defeated the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist as of December 25, 1991, without war.

We played a good hand and won, but now other conflicts are following on the heals of that victory: Israel/Palestine; Ukraine/Russia; China/Taiwan; conflicts in Mali and other African nations.

The need is not for armies but for peacemakers and persuaders. Can the U.S. remake itself again, into the soft power now called for?

The Best Governments Can Change

The ability to change is perhaps the best argument for a democratic form of government.

Certainly, democracy can’t be lauded for perfection. Governments with a certain measure of control by the people make mistakes, too.

Also, no doubt, some dictators have acted for the good of their country. The problem is that when they don’t, it’s hard to put them out of office.

Democracy is messy, but when it veers down wrong paths, the possibility of changing it with the next election is always a possibility.

Democracy makes sense because no group or person is perfect. Those who believe that only they or their group have the perfect answer can be a danger to democracy if they become powerful enough.

Our imperfections should make us tolerant of those with whom we disagree. We do not have to agree with them. We may even believe they are completely wrong in their opinions. However, for democracy to work, we have to respect them.

Humility may be an absolute necessity for democracy to work.

Public Schools and Religion

I’m against teaching religion in the public schools or making any religion, including Christianity, a state religion.

I’ve lived in some countries where a particular religion was the national religion and was taught in the public schools. Usually it wasn’t the Christian religion. Christian families often sent their children to private schools, including ones run by Christian organizations. Many of the families were fairly well-off expatriates who had the money to do so. Others took advantage of home schooling.

I’m a Christian, but I don’t want public schools favoring my religion any more that I want them favoring one I don’t follow. I don’t want public schools favoring any religion. For one, I think it likely that having a religion forced on you would be a way to encourage you to resent it. More than that, I know of few religions more likely to grow when built on private choice than the one Jesus preached, taught, and died for.

Love God with all your being and your neighbor as yourself were the two greatest commandments, Jesus said. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy might. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)

Jesus commanded his followers to love, as he loved. He allowed himself to be taken and executed rather than choosing conquest and forcing others to accept his kingdom by physical might.

I certainly don’t want to force on others a religion Jesus himself refused to force on anyone.

The Quick Fix Versus the Slower but Surer

The quote caught my attention: “ . . . the downside is immediate while gratification comes years later.” The article in a recent issue of a professional journal spoke of the diplomat’s responsibility to work toward long term diplomatic solutions to global problems even if the solutions may be unpopular at the time.

Solutions to many problems may initially be difficult, even unpopular, yet preferable to a quick fix. A fix immediately solves a current problem but may lead to tougher problem later: instant gratification versus longer term solutions.

Political problems are said to be “kicked down the road,” always waiting until after the next election. Meanwhile they often grow worse.

Our health in later life may suffer because of poor choices requiring self discipline earlier: lack of exercise, overeating, smoking.

Instant gratification tends to choose immediate pleasure over the development of the inner self and of community. What makes us feel good is preferred to that which steers us to healthier bodies, deeper understanding, and stronger communities.

Politics becomes part of the problem. Voters may be unable to understand that the best candidate may be the one offering the hardest solutions.

Our Unappreciated Elections

American women were given the right to vote about the time my mother reached maturity. She immediately registered to vote and most likely voted in every national and local election since then as long as she lived. My father also voted regularly, and as far as I know, never attempted to influence my mother’s vote, nor she his. In one presidential election, they voted for different candidates, but I don’t recall any bickering between them.

As civic-minded citizens, they served as poll workers during many elections, providing help with setting up the tables for registering voters and other chores related to turning our school cafeteria into a polling place. Watching them and my neighbors in friendly conversation, I gained an appreciation for the American version of democracy.

Since that time watching those voters in my childhood, I served overseas with the U.S. State Department. Once a citizen of another country who worked with me wanted to see my recently arrived absentee ballot because he was interested in what a ballot in a free election looked like, as he didn’t have the privilege of that kind of election in his country. That’s probably when I actually realized what a privilege we have.

The path to true democratic elections was sullied by some of our history: slavery and later by blacks being refused the right to vote, to name two. A third would be today’s reported threats against elected officials. Nevertheless, most of us still vote easily, even if by mail instead of in person.

One change I’d like is a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college and allowing for election by popular vote.

But at least we have a Constitution and the possibility of change.

 

Sabbaths

I was raised in a church-going family—every Sunday, rain or shine, we attended at least two gatherings of our church. We made friends there. As a young person, I spent the greater part of my social life within its activities.

I’m aware that Sunday is no longer part of public consciousness as before, even if one was an atheist. Friday, Saturday, Sunday or whatever holy day the religious favor, all of us more often choose to use that day for other pursuits. We ignore both the larger community and thoughtful contemplation.

But we don’t just forget to rest one day a week—whether sacred or secular resting. We go full stop all seven days of the week. Our stores are open every day.

If religion sometimes led to bigotry and persecution, the secular alternatives are no better. Capitalism can be an efficient way to order our economic activities. When it becomes our god and our religion, it corrupts us. A country ruled by a capitalist cabal, divided into haves and have-nots, is just as harmful as a state ruled by religious fanatics.

The early Hebrews were enjoined not only to keep one day a week for rest and worship but also to proclaim a Year of Jubilee every 49 years. Family property, sold to strangers, now would be given back to the original family. We might call the system compassionate capitalism., capitalism with limits.

Neither Sabbath nor Jubilee was kept as intended.

When the Hebrews finally were carried off into exile, their prophets told them to consider those years of exile as the Sabbaths and the Jubilees they had neglected to keep.

Perhaps those recently passed days when we were kept by Covid from many of our communal activities were a kind of forced rest.

Is Secularism Necessary to Keep the Religious From Killing Each Other?

Did the rise of secularism in the West finally end Europe’s religious wars of the 1600’s?

Today we in democratic nations rejoice when Middle Eastern nations become more secular. Secularism encourages more religious freedom. A strong middle class may develop, influenced by material wealth rather than religious dogma. Nations with secularist trends are not likely to fight religious wars.

On the other hand, secular nations also have produced wars and brutality, as in the First and Second World Wars.

Religion is not necessary for evil to flourish. The desire to eliminate those we don’t like or to make them second class citizens so we can grab their wealth and cheap labor is embedded in our DNA.

The problem with religion is the problem with whatever humans touch. Religion can become a weapon, but so can national pride (Germany in the first half of the twentieth century) or desire for wealth (the invasion of Africa by European nations).

In addition, politicians can manipulate believers through granting special favor to one particular religion. Religious leaders may be tempted to use the power of the state to advance their beliefs, even to force them on others.

The United States was founded as one of the most secular nations in the world. To the astonishment of Europe and its state churches, religion flourished in the former colony.

Unfortunately, as Christianity became more influential, the old temptation to use it for power asserted itself. Though some political leaders certainly practiced a sincere religion, others less honest began to play the religious card to get elected.

Better to earn converts the old-fashioned way. Forget using the government as a tool to bolster your personal religious beliefs. Live your religion so people find it attractive.