Solitude and Struggle

Alastair Hale

The Temptation in the Wilderness, by Briton Rivière (1898)

Twelve months ago I thought solitude was a luxury. After a few busy months of meetings and social engagements, I began Lent 2020 feeling somewhat tired and overstretched. If I’m honest, I was secretly looking forward to the opportunity which Lent seemed to offer for “escape” from the world. It was in this spirit that I booked myself in for a silent retreat at a monastery on the other side of the country—partly to deepen my faith, and partly to get some peace and quiet. I remember reflecting on how infrequently opportunities for solitude of this kind come along. I had no idea how soon that would change.

There are many people for whom the last year has been anything but solitary—carers, health-workers, home-schoolers, and more. For others, however, this year has been characterised by a surfeit of solitude: by separation from friends and family, by isolation and by loss. For me, the concept of “solitude as luxury” doesn’t seem quite as resonant in 2021. The things which I now prize the most are the things which, a year ago, I was trying the hardest to escape from.

Jesus often sought solitude—for example, before His arrest at Gethsemane, or before the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus also makes it clear that we should follow His example: He instructs us to “go into your room and shut the door” when we pray, rather than standing “in the synagogues and at street corners.” Solitude, in many of these examples, is a way of overcoming distraction to make a purer and deeper connection with God. In this reading, solitude is a valuable commodity for the Christian life—even, perhaps, a “luxury.”

However, this is not the only kind of solitude in the Gospels. Matthew tells us that, at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” not to escape distraction or to connect with God, but “to be tempted by the devil.” This solitude is not a luxury but a torment, a solitude of vulnerability and struggle—perhaps reminiscent of the solitude of the cross where Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

In the wilderness, Jesus is challenged by the tempter to demonstrate his power and identity as the Son of God. Alone, isolated from the reference points of his earlier life—from his teachers, family and from his cousin John—Jesus is at His most vulnerable. In the solitude of the wilderness, it almost seems to be madness to resist these temptations. What could be more seductive to a starving man than the ability to turn stones into bread? What could be more attractive to the isolated outcast than the power to rule the world? But Jesus responds to the devil only by quoting scripture, reaffirming the identity and destiny which was proclaimed by God at his baptism: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is upon this foundational struggle with the forces of evil that all Jesus’s ministry, death and victory are built.

 In solitude, we all face struggles of identity. In prolonged isolation, when we cannot leave our homes, hug our loved ones, or receive the Eucharist, we can feel lost, forgotten, vulnerable. This solitude is a struggle, not a balm. And yet, in the deepest wilderness God is with us, and we are His beloved. Our hope, our identity, our destiny, as Christ’s pilgrim people, is founded on the identity we claimed at baptism. “God knows each of us by name and we are his.”