From Your Minister
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I’ve recently been engaged in a fascinating email conversation with a man named Michael Lorence, who found me electronically and reached out. Michael and his wife Diana wanted to share their story of the seven years that they spent living in a 12×12 foot house in the center of 60 acres of woods. They called the cabin, “Innermost House.”
Michael explained that they went to town once a month for groceries, and otherwise depended on someone with a car to drop fresh produce at their home weekly. He said that he and Diana might sometimes go weeks without speaking to each other. They had no electricity, and heated and cooked with a simple fireplace. They had books, and people dropped in for conversations every couple of weeks, but they lived a life of deep solitude. Kind of as if Henry Thoreau had gone to Walden Pond with a spouse and didn’t pop over to the Emersons’ place every day for lunch. (I have only been in contact with Michael, but he is clear that it is primarily Diana’s vision driving what they have done, and casts himself in the role of supportive spouse.)
After Michael wrote, I went to their website and stared at the pictures of the beautiful house he designed, and watched a video about their life there. The love and joy that emanates from both of them, in writing and in video, is palpable.
I tried to imagine what such a life would mean, but quickly realized that imagining such a thing has little to do with living it. The closest thing I have to compare it to is the way I have felt on the extended Vipassana Buddhist silent meditation retreats that I have enjoyed. The longest I have spent in such structured silence is 10 days, and I will say that at the end, I also looked shiny and clear, sort of like Diana does in the Innermost House video.
The gift of those days, and of Innermost House, is the presence that comes from simplicity. I simply have too many tasks, relationships, belongings, and thoughts to tend to all of them well. Solitude often comes with simplicity, particularly an inner simplicity.
In all honesty, I spent the vast majority of time during those ten-day retreats becoming aware of how rarely I am completely present to myself. It was not one blissful moment after another. And I have not been on an extended retreat since I got my smartphone. The mere idea of being without that little buddy for ten days is enough to raise serious anxiety in my chest. When I looked at the gorgeous cabin in the woods, my first thought was: Would there be smartphone coverage there?
This habit, this urge, reminds me yet again why I take a digital sabbath every week. Michael and Diana Lorence may have spent seven years in a tiny remote cabin, but for me, simply turning off all electronic devices for a day each week is a huge stretch. And yet, I will say, this choice to silence my electronics has become pivotal in my life. It’s one thing to be gardening and to know that any moment I might be “pinged” by phone or text or email. It’s quite another when my phone is inside, turned off.
A digital sabbath allows those of us who are generally plugged in to focus fully on what we are doing. It’s like having a conversation with the door closed instead of knowing that at any moment someone might walk by, eavesdrop, or chime in as we talk in the grocery store checkout line.
I asked Michael about the conversations that took place when visitors arrived at Innermost House. He said they were powerful because of what the visitors were “allowed to leave behind.” He said, “First they left their working lives behind to drive to the farm. Then they left their commuting life behind with their car. Then they left their worldly life behind with the woods. Then they left their daylight selves behind with the darkness. At last they left the rest of themselves behind to squeeze through the door.”
What do you need to leave behind in order to enjoy solitude? Whether it’s the monkey-mind that wants to engage you on a zafu cushion, the lure of the pings from an electronic device, the car or the job or the commute—what do you have to set aside?
And, where will you be most able to enjoy that solitude? For me, it’s not a remote tiny house but the garden that surrounds my city home. The companionship I feel with my deeper self in the presence of my little green friends is the prize that makes it worth letting go of the comfort of distraction or human company.
Solitude, easiness in our own solitary presence, is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and one that no one else can give.
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