Wednesday 18 January 2023
Sunrise
Alone or
in Solitude,
in the fog and
freezing drizzle.
Exodus 15:13
In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit
Words of Grace For Today
During Covid we learned to live with minimal contact with other people … well some of us did. It is quite the thing to live separate from lots of human contact. Some of us can live that way much more comfortably than others. It’s called being an introvert.
Introverts know a lot about solitude, as opposed to loneliness. Being lonely implies that one is missing an essential part of life, contact with others. Finding solitude and enjoying solitude implies that one is relieved to be separate from the chaos of other people. Lonely is to be at a loss. Solitude is to live well alone.
For extroverts it is difficult to imagine being at peace separate from the chaos of others, because they gain energy from others, while us introverts ‘charge our batteries’ only when we are alone.
Different ways of being, both have their challenges and weaknesses. Extroverts can too easily get caught up in the ‘fake news’- ‘echo chamber’ – irreality that can lead to either trumplike idiocy with power or suicide bomber fanaticism. Introverts can too easily miss out on the joy of loving other people.
For us all, Jesus came and sacrificed himself, the only perfectly righteous person, and then came back to life; all in order that we might be free from the sins that drag us down, extroverts and introverts alike, into the pit of life-squandered-on-stupidities.
Instead, God leads us, not by force, but by weakness and mercy, to find the fullness of life in accepting forgiveness for our sins, and extending that same forgiveness to others.
In that steadfast mercy, we are ‘found’ again and again by God’s Spirit, and we find ourselves ‘at home’, in God’s abode,
which is this beautiful creation all around us.