Part 3, Chapter 24
Tug of war, I remember doing this. Tug of war: a battle between people of strength, endurance and strategy that ended in one team winning and another losing. It was fun to watch it, but difficult to participate in it, and I never wanted to be on the losing team. Now, I bring up this image because we are all familiar with it, but in this case I want us to think of it differently.
St. Francis De Sales talks about society and solitude. Now, image that one of our tug of war teams is society and the other solitude. There is a healthy tension between both. We shouldn’t be pulled in one direction too much or the other. Rather, we should be both in solitude and society, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less, and yet the tension should remain on the rope. “We are told to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. In token that we love him, we must not avoid being with him, and the test of loving one’s self is to be happy when alone” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 121). We can see the tension here of being alone with the Lord and being with people. We need to do both. Yes, we need to pray and be alone with God (much of this book talks about that), but we also need to be with people. “Our own devout life will be materially helped by intercourse with other devout souls” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 122). Both solitude and society can help us grow in the way of following the Lord.
There are some pitfalls that should be avoided in both. Most of us are not called to be hermits (alone with the Lord). We are called to be men and women who pray. There can be a danger though of staying in prayer and not dialoging with others as sometimes we are not being filled with the Lord; we are filled with something else; that is why we need society and a spiritual guide. But there are problems with society too! “Depreciating this person, slandering another, wounding a third, stimulating the folly of a fourth—all such things, however amusing, are foolish and impertinent” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 123). In other words, there are some things in society that we should avoid and these are just some of them. Silence and noise, solitude and society are needed; we should keep a healthy tension in living these out.