God, I had an aha moment today. A friend halfway around the world and I were texting–have I thanked You lately for the technology that, first, allowed us to find each other after 40 years, and second, allows us to so easily keep in touch–anyway, we were texting and she asked me if I am an introvert. And I replied that yes, I am. Here is, basically, what I said to her, what led up to my eureka.
I love people, I said. I love talking to people, getting to know folks, sharing with them, and I think I am a born storyteller. HOWEVER, all that being true, it is also true that I recharge in solitude. That is, in solitude deliberately spent one-on-one with You, and preferably, outside. I need time and space, I said. I need alone time precisely to fill up again so that I can go back into the world and give out, give-away. And then, depleted, I need to go back into solitude to recharge, and be able to go back to my public life. Finally, I noted that I always feel as if I need to apologize for wanting alone time, for feeling that I need it, and I don’t know how to really ask for what I want, what it seems I need.
Then I said how this whole conundrum reminded me of something Richard Rohr wrote about Jesus, how Jesus needed His time alone in communion with the Father in order to go out into the world and minister. That was my aha moment. If Jesus needed time “alone” — meaning, not with the crowds but not even with His disciples either — then surely it is okay if I do. No wonder I feel out of balance, or unrested. I am not honoring the process at all! It was exciting, actually, to have a door of understanding swing so easily open. What is not so easy is trying to explain it to all the people in my life who rely on me for so many different things–or whose life experience or personality is different enough from mine that they genuinely have no frame of reference to understand what I need, or why I need it. So what would You say about that?
Richard Rohr goes on to write about creativity, about the need for solitude and recharge time as well as time immersed in the world for creativity to flourish. That is certainly true of you, and it explains why you feel stymied creatively much of the time. What I told you recently about healing and restoring the part of you that is a writer is tied directly to this need you have to both go within and without. This is the Way to find your path within prayerful solitude, the path that leads directly to the making a difference you so passionately want to do, in your world. It is a circular sort of path, not unlike a labyrinth, in that you will constantly be circling back through solitude and out into the world, as long as you remain committed both to Me and to the calling you sense so strongly, to share. You have thought these were opposites instead of two essential halves making up a whole, a whole life. Instead of either/or, this is another both/and, and the combination makes The Third Way. It is not selfish of you to need time alone; it is essential. I made you for this. Let that sink in. I made you, as you are. I made you to need, to crave, time apart, and I made you to long to give to others. Let the war within you cease now. Embrace the totality of who you are, who I have made you to be, and be. Be fully, deeply both/and.