Solitudine

Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone,
and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

- Paul Tillich

 

On the western edge of a wild flower prairie field, there is a homestead of a retired teacher. It is a picturesque scene.  A small welcoming white-washed house with a huge front porch housing rockers and a swing. There is a backdrop of olive and cypress trees which offer protection and privacy; and within the grove of trees is a brisk refreshing stony creek which winds through the property.  South of the house is a garden which was always in production of life-giving nourishment.  Walking around the homestead, one can sense the amount of love nurtured into the property.

In this home, a lifetime was spent raising children and grandchildren; and developing a knack for dishing love to all who came to call.  The home was filled at different times with family and friends gathered together for holidays, milestone events, summer vacation morning coffee, or Sunday afternoon meals. There were book club meetings, bible studies, prayer meetings, and weekly Nertz card games held in the quaint great room at the front of the house. Music which was a part of every event provided a kindly greeting as one approached the home and spirited a cheerful atmosphere.  Anyone who visited the homestead always departed with a nourished soul filled with love of the highest order. 

No one left the homestead feeling lonely, so how could the retired teacher live such a long love filled life with an emptiness to her soul? As her granddaughter read the secret diary which she found accidentally the day of her wake, tears filled her eyes as she grasped the deep meaning to her grandmother's words.  Even though her dear grandmother had enjoyed the solitude of the homestead, she liked the hustle bustle of a noise filled home, so had become the queen hostess of the county.........yet.....

there were times when her grandmother's soul ached with loneliness.  She read how her grandmother always felt something was missing from her heart. She had written a quote of Vincent Van Gogh's about how one may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet on one ever comes to sit by it. Could it be that despite all of the love that had been provided by her grandmother that she hadn't received deep soulful love in return.  Without meaning to.....had most people who had come and gone from the homestead taken and not given? How sad that such a loving woman could pass from this world with a soul having the poverty of loneliness.

All life runs on the flux of energy in and out of chemical reactions.  If incoming energy is lacking, then the output will eventually slow down and become less efficient.  Love is the fuel to one's soul.  It provides the energy required to deal with life's details.....the ups and the downs.  If love isn't returned to one's soul as much as it is given, then even the most heart-felt soul will begin to feel as dry as a well. This dryness is loneliness.  Remember to send love out into the world as often as you receive it to continue the cycle of love.  Love should flow in and out of our souls at heart-felt levels of equilibrium just as sunlight continuously drives the chemical reaction of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis produces the life giving food for plants like love is the food for our souls.  

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.  

- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 May my soul continue to send love out into the world to refresh the love reserves in friend and foes.

May my soul not feel the affects of loneliness one day.

St. Francis de Sales pray for all spiritual friendships.

St. Theresa the little flower, pray for the poverty of loneliness to be wiped clean from this world.

St. Florian, pray for the protection of all emergency responders and firefighters.
St. Pio, pray for the faith of my family and friends.

- little petunia