Anyone who has ever protected a little boy from being bullied at school, or a little girl from some childish persecution at a party, or any natural person from any minor nuisance, knows that the being thus badgered tends to cry out, in a simple but singular English idiom, “Let me alone!” It is seldom that the child of nature breaks into the cry, “Let me enjoy the fraternal solidarity of a more socially organised group-life.” It is rare even for the protest to leap to the lips in the form, “Let me run around with some crowd that has got dough enough to hit the high spots.” Not one of these positive modern ideals presents itself to that untutored mind; but only the ideal of being “let alone.” It is rather interesting that so spontaneous, instinctive, almost animal an ejaculation contains the word alone.
-G.K. Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows
I just deleted the over 1,000 words I wrote about this quote. I don’t regret it. It’s difficult.
The fact of the matter is that we are made in the image of the triune God. God is one. God is three. We need to be alone. We need to be in community. Christianity, and only Christianity as far as I know, can truly account for the fact that we want to be alone and not be alone at one and the same time.
The fact is that, in our sinful condition, we have to encourage people to be both alone and not alone. We have to encourage the introvert to get out and the extravert to get in, realizing that both solitude and company are worthwhile. Neither is superior to the other. Both are vital for spiritual and psychological health.
The monk needs to get out of his cloister regularly. The social butterfly needs to lock himself up in a room from time to time. No hermits; no social complexes; no schizoids. No dependent personality disorders either.
The age is the issue. In some times and cultures, we must emphasize one over the other. But what about such a time as this? Hence the difficulty. We live in an age where we are never alone although we are often…well…alone. We need real community and real solitude. We lack both.
Mysticism is not the answer. Neither is a community group. We need balance…
