GROWING EDGES

As I begin writing this quarterly letter, I have just returned from meeting with a highly effective pastor in our area who is planning an extended period of personal retreat for his own spiritual nurture. During our conversation, he said to me, "The greatest gift I can give my people is to become a pastor who has grown deep in the things of God." Wise pastor! And rare.

This prompted me to think about why we shy away from experiences of solitude even though they were absolutely axiomatic to the figures that walk across the pages of our Bible and to the great leaders of all our traditions. I am not thinking about the normal excuses we give for neglecting times of personal retreat: overcrowded schedules, demanding responsibilities, numerous obligations, constant deadlines, and more. While these things do need to be dealt with, they are only surface matters.

The Root of Our Fear
No, I am concerned about a deeper reason that invariably crops up any time we consider times of genuine solitude. It is the almost overwhelming feeling that we will be passed over. Now, what we say is, "I want to be available to help whenever there is a crisis or problem." But what really concerns us is that people will get along quite well without us! You see, this strikes right at the root of our fear of becoming unimportant, unneeded, insignificant, useless.

This is precisely why solitude is such a fundamental discipline of the spiritual life. As long as we are at the center of the action, we feel indispensable. And we are sorely tempted to micro-manage everyone around us . . . for their good, of course! But genuine experiences of solitude undercut all the pretense. In the very act of retreat we resign as CEO of the universe. We entrust people into the hands of God. We allow others to develop and grow without our constant oversight. This, in time, gives us a precious freedom when we are among people—the freedom to serve and be served without the slightest need to manage or control either people or circumstances.

Rendering Ourselves Useless
Besides, it isn't all that bad to become useless. Good teachers hope in time to make themselves useless to those under their tutelage. Students unable to think for themselves and thus forever dependent upon their teachers have not been taught well. Parents are exceedingly useful to young children. But good parents are constantly working to make themselves useless as they nurture a growing self-government in their children. Perpetual dependency in a daughter or son is a grotesque thing indeed.

An old writer, Henry Clay Trumbull, once said, "There are ever two ways of striving to fill one's place in the world: one is by seeking to prove one's self useful; the other, by striving to render one's self useless. The first way is the commoner and the more attractive; the second is the rarer and the more noble." Regular experiences of spiritual retreat and genuine solitude will empower us and give us the perspective necessary to render ourselves useless.

Peace and joy,

Richard J. Foster