ISOLATION

I have been trying to meditate and concentrate on isolation. There are both very positive and negative sides to isolation. The positive is the joy and blessing of being alone and lost in silence and solitude as we isolate from others to receive what only the Father gives to us personally while in isolation. The negative is when we isolate to hide, cover-up, escape what is normal, to spend all our emotions on our own needs.

Another consideration is the difference in being in isolation while still very connected to others in community of some kind and being isolated and without community. The first is simply a discipline and isolation is the vehicle to produce discipline. The second is escape to loneliness, wounding and rejection without community or very little community.

We do not need to be off somewhere in ‘retreat’ and hidden away in the woods, or the ocean or the desert to be in isolation. It is great to be in these places but isolation begins in the inner self as we process our own thoughts, feelings and condition of our soul in the quiet of personal silence. It is becoming quiet enough to hear the voice of Jesus.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus