Item 1561 - Isolate self at times

This item is a half-page article by Henri Nouwen entitled, ‘ Isolate Self at Times’ , published in The National Catholic Reporter, July 5, 1974, p. 11. Nouwen continues the theme of fruitful solitude which he began in previous columns of this paper. Nouwen states at the beginning, ‘It is probably difficult if not impossible to move from loneliness to solitude without any form of withdrawal from a distracting world’. He speaks of monks and hermits who go into the wilderness seeking solitude but goes on to say, ‘ But the solitude which really counts is the solitude of the heart, an inner quality or attitude which does not depend on physical isolation’. Nouwen speaks of the difference in being present to another in loneliness or in solitude. In solitude, he suggests, we hear the other and respond. He also suggests that we all move back and forth between these poles even from hour to hour. Nouwen states ‘ Sometimes I wonder if the fact that so many people ask support, advice and counsel from so many other people is not, for a large part, a result of their having lost contact with their innermost self’. Nouwen concludes the article with a lengthy quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.