- What quality of solitude led Lindbergh to write on marriage, relationships & intimacy?
- What does the natural setting teach her about relationships? about God?
- Do Lindbergh's insights reflect your own personal experiences?
- As you've walked through God's creation this week, this autumn, what theological truths have you perceived?
- What is the spiritual value of solitude? How can we find a space for it in our lives?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Anne Morrow Linbergh on Solitude
Anne Morrow Linbergh wrote her book, The Gift From The Sea, during a month alone on an island. We invite you to respond to this excerpt (Spiritual Classics, page 141) in any way you choose.
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3 comments:
helpful and inspirational
I find the image of "ebb and flow" to be very powerful. To recognize this dynamic as created by God, natural and good, helps me accept the highs and lows of relationships, phases of life and even of individual days.
Since Katrina struck our home in 2005 our lives as husband and wife and as a family have been anything but a dance. We have lost the context, the geography of the dance and we are not instinctively moving to the same rhythm. In the midst of this chaos, I found myself called to a new ministry in Kansas City, MO. Thinking I would dance my whole life in Mississippi, such a calling had to be of God. Yet it seemed to tear at the fabric of our family reel. In March of 2006, leaving my cure of 16+ years and my family (to deal with the repairs to the house), I traversed to a new dance floor where there were unfamiliar rhythms and geography (of the Norris sort). In July, my family joined me. Our synchronicity askew, we have discovered arrhythmia to be the norm of our current dance. Compounding this is our current state of homelessness--we have not found a proper dwelling in KC and remain (all four of us--17, 23, 51, 54 years old) in a 1000 sqft apt. Our current dances would be more properly characterized as collisions.
As I read Linbergh's reflection, I found it to be comforting and encouraging. The difficulties of the complex dance of love and affection are real even in the best of circumstances. In our current circumstances, we find the difficulties magnified. Yet, I am not afraid. I know we will find our rhythym. Linbergh writes, "But how to exorcize it? It can only be exorcized by its opposite, love. When the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance." Despite our missteps and our awkward attempts in this difficult time, I feel the dance coming. Our pendulum has swung as far as possible (or so it seems right now) into the region of two left feet. I believe, in its inevitable swing back, the new dance will be even more profound and more deeply felt.
stan+
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