Solitude and hope

I'm preparing to set off for Llannerchwen, my favourite place for a retreat. Earlier this week a couple of my work colleagues asked me about this precious time, and how I would spend it. So, I talked about Llannerchwen's cabins and hermitages, and how I was looking forward to eight days of space and solitude, my own rhythm, and the silence permeating the place; to wide views and even wider skies, long walks in untramelled nature and, of course, to extra, focused time in prayer and simply being contemplatively with God.

My colleagues liked the idea of solitude - and really, who doesn't? Even the most sociable will, at times, be beguiled by the thought of having their own space, and time apart, to 'do their own thing'; to rest, and to restore themselves in their own way, according to their own rhythm. I love it! - and though I'm an extrovert, I need it. But of course, we were not created to spend our entire lives as little islands, entirely aloof and self-sufficient: we were made to be in relationship; made to be for and with each other, and with God. We were created for service, and for a love which takes us beyond ourselves; created for community, and for connection; for participation and involvement, and all the joy and the pain which come from all this.

And so, I know that I will not be alone in my solitude - and I do not want to be. Wherever I go, God goes with me - has all too often preceded me - and so, felt or not, he will be with me in the journey, and waiting for me in my cabin. I hope I will continue to know he is with me: hope that I will know myself to be alone with the One who is the Source of all my life; all my loving, and all my energy and yearning.

But there will be others with us, too. I cannot make my retreat in a world-proof bubble: thus, whenever I am on retreat, I briefly check the news headlines each day, or listen to a bulletin on BBC Radio 4, then spend some time holding people and situations in prayer. This year, I am sure I will share my solitude with the people of Gaza, and Ukraine; with their desperation and anguish, and their fragile hopes for peace. And there will be room, too, for the negotiators, and for situations in this country: and of course, I will bring with me the people for whom I have promised prayers, with their pain, their questions and their own fragile hopes. There will be space for them, just as there is always space in God's wide-open Heart.

I realise I have written 'hope' a lot - and it occurs to me that this will be my Jubilee of Hope retreat! Maybe I am being called to live it as a Pilgrim of Hope? - and as a pilgrim, a traveller, into hope. And so I take this whole thought of hope with me, along with the Jubilee prayer, which ends with these words:

May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth...

Let us pray for each other, and for the fulfilment and strengthening of fragile hopes, during this week.