“The Gift of Solitude”

By Reverend James Kubal-Komoto

Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church

Des Moines, Washington

February 19, 2006

            I want to talk about the importance of solitude, the importance of sometime spending some time alone because it’s been something that’s been on my mind this past week.

            You see, I took Hiromi to the airport last Saturday morning. As I mentioned last Sunday, she’s gone back to Tokyo by herself for a few weeks to visit family and friends, as she’s done many times since we’ve been married.

            Hiromi and I will celebrate our 10^th wedding anniversary this summer, and we have a good marriage. It’s not a perfect marriage, but I have yet to meet a couple that has a perfect marriage. Like all couples, we’ve had to work at our relationship, learn to accept things, learn to make compromises, and we still get into occasional arguments, still usually about the silliest things.

            Though not perfect, my marriage is the most important relationship of my life. It is both the most challenging and most rewarding part of my life and is what gives my life the most meaning.

            Having said all that, it may sound odd for me to say that I have come to value these occasional weeks that Hiromi and I spend apart, but I do.

            I think one of the reasons that I value these times apart is because I know from past experience that it makes both of realize what our relationship means to one another. It gives each of us a sliver of a taste of what our lives would be like without one another. As a result we tend to appreciate each other more and not take each other for granted, as we might otherwise.

            After I dropped Hiromi off at the airport and was driving home on I-5, I felt that pang in my gut, that feeling right below my ribcage, like somebody had punched me hard, and though I hadn’t felt it in a while, I knew instantly what it was. I was missing her already. Though she was probably still standing in line going through security at the airport, I was already missing her.

            And I’ve continued to miss her all week.

            Of course, we haven’t been completely out of contact. She called me as soon as she arrived safely at her parents’ apartment, which was very considerate of her to do.

            (I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. Whenever I take a plane anywhere, my mother, who lives in Chicago, asks me ahead of time, “Just call me when you get there so I know you arrived safely.” My standard reply is, “Mom, if the plane crashes, it’ll be on CNN. If you don’t see anything on TV, assume I’m okay.)

            Even though we were apart, we celebrated Valentine’s Day. Hiromi left me a box of chocolates hidden in the dishwasher. I don’t know how she knew that I wouldn’t open the dishwasher before Tuesday, but I suppose after so many years a wife just knows certain things about her husband.

            Hiromi and I also e-mail each other every day.

            But it’s not the same as when you’re used to living with somebody. It’s strange to wake up by oneself, eat by oneself, not have somebody to talk to in the evening, and go to bed by oneself.

            However, part of me also enjoys this time alone.

            Here I’m not just talking about the superficial pleasures of the bachelor lifestyle. You know what I’m talking about - - using all the hot water I want in the shower, not sharing the bathroom sink in the morning, parking my car in the warm garage and not having to scrape my windshield when it’s frosty, watching any movie I want on TV, and best of all, drinking milk straight out of container if I really want to.

            Rather, I’m talking about just being alone by myself, spending time with absolutely no one else but me.

            I’ve lived alone twice before in my life. For one year in college, I had an apartment by myself, and I lived alone for the four years I spent in Japan. One of the things I’ve realized this past week, however, is how little time I usually get to spend alone, just with myself.

            I suspect I’m not alone in this. On the one hand, I suspect that some of us here this morning struggle with having too much alone time on our hands. I know that for a variety of reasons, more people are living by themselves today than at any other time in human history. On the other hand, I’m suspect that like me, that some of us here this morning get to spend very little time by ourselves.

            And this is what I’d like to talk about this morning. I want to suggest for your consideration this morning is that it’s important for each of us to be able to spend some significant time alone every once in a while in our lives.

            Why?

            In the Book of Genesis in Hebrew Scripture, the Lord God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” I interpret this scripture as reflecting a universal truth, that human beings are social beings, that we are social animals.

            Unlike some animals on this planet, we don’t do very well when we spend too much time alone. From the day we are born until the day we die, we are in need of one another. We need one another to nurture one another, care for one another, listen to one another, to support one another, to do together what is impossible for us to do alone.

            Sometimes, we just yearn for the touch of another human being.

            I think of the first of the four years I lived in Japan. I was far away from family and friends and hadn’t made many new ones yet. That year, I got my haircut quite often. A co-worker commented, “You sure like to get haircuts.” But one of the wonderful things about getting a haircut in Japan is that you also usually receive a very vigorous shampoo and shoulder massage along with a haircut. Reflecting back on this, I think one of the reasons I got my hair cut so often was that I was missing simple human contact.

            Babies fail to thrive when they’re not held, but I don’t think there’s anytime in our lives when we lose the need for contact with another human being.

            We need one another in so many ways.

            One of the most frustrating things for me as minister of this church is when members of this church hesitate to ask for help from one another, believing that asking for help is a character flaw. It is not. On the contrary, asking for help is a sign of moral maturity, a sign that we’ve grown up enough to face the reality of being human.

            On the other hand, as much as we need one another in so many ways, I believe that unless we also manage to spend some time by ourselves on a regular basis, we miss out on some important experiences, some important opportunities.

            What do we miss out on? What opportunities do we miss?

            First, if we never spend significant time alone, it’s easy to forget who we really are.

            I read an essay several years ago in the New York Times magazine by a man named Andre Aciman. In the essay, Aciman talks about living in an apartment building in Manhattan and having little time just by himself. Sometimes Aciman finds himself fantasizing about another apartment his building, an imaginary apartment, in fact, where in an imaginary world, he lives by himself.

            “With imaginary stealth and imaginary keys, I’ll enter my imaginary 9I,” Aciman writes. “The place is a mess, of course, because house rules are entirely mine. An old couch has miraculously turned up from my undergraduate days, and next to it are piles of Russian novels I’ve been meaning to re-read, some of them standing partly opened in upside-down formation like tents bivouacked on a weather-beaten rug, the whole room cluttered with things that don’t mind the dust, the mess or the crackling patter of an old recording of the ‘Goldberg Variations’ on perpetual replay.

            “This is my universe, no one else’s. And in this stupor, I’ll lift the curtain look onto an emptied side street in Manhattan, and staring blankly at the moon, seek out the one person whose friendship I always neglect and take for granted: me.”

            The message that I hear in Aciman’s words is that in any relationship, there is a danger of losing our selves. There is a danger that as we take on the roles of spouse, parent, friend, or even employee that one day we will wake up and be a stranger to ourselves, not knowing really who we are, what we like, or what our passions are. Without some occasional time alone, we might forget that, like Aciman, we like Russian novels or the Goldberg Variations or something else.

            Even more importantly, without some time alone, we may never be able to hear that “still, small voice within,” that voice that speaks in our hearts about the deepest yearnings and aspirations of our hearts. I think, too often, that voice within each us gets drowned out in the casual conversations of everyday living.

            When I reflect on my own personal experience, I remember that it was while I was living in Japan - - the time of my life that I probably spent the most time alone – that I also began to consider the possibility of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister. No one in my family had ever become a minister before, nor did I have any friends who had followed this path, and I have wondered I wonder if I had not had so much time alone, to listen to my own thoughts and to reflect, if I would have been able to discern a calling to the vocation I now call my own.

            If we never spend time alone, it’s easy to forget who we are or to miss out on the opportunity to discover who we are supposed to become.

            If we never spend any significant time alone is the opportunity to face our own devils and demons.

            (I know I’m making being alone sound really attractive here. First you hear voices, then you see devils and demons, but what do I mean?)

            Well listen to what Henry David Thoreau, who made a career out of spending time by himself once said about this: “It is easier to sail many thousands of miles through cold and storm and cannibals…than it is to explore the private seas, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.”

            But what’s so scary about exploring the ocean of “one’s being alone” and what does this have to do with devils and demons?

            The answer can be found in stories from two different religious traditions.

            In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke in Christian Scripture, we are told that before beginning his ministry, Jesus went to the wilderness for forty days, and during this time he was tempted by the devil. Similarly, we are told that after meditating underneath the Bodhi tree and soon before attaining Enlightenment, the Buddha was tempted by demons and devils, the sons and daughters of Mara.

            We don’t have to take these stories literally to understand their truth. Both of these stories suggest to us something many of us most likely know already, and that is that if we spend significant periods of time by ourselves, our own devils and demons - - all of the fears and anxieties and questions that we each have about ourselves and our  own lives will eventually appear to us.

            Of course, these days, even when we’re alone, we have a multitude of ways of distracting ourselves from these anxieties, fears, and questions: television, radio, high-speed internet connection, cell phones. Sometimes it seems like the whole world is designed to keep us from ever reflecting too much at all about our lives, from ever giving us even 10 seconds to wonder about life.

            But think about this? Do you think that Jesus would have ever become the great spiritual teacher he did if he had a cellphone with him in the wilderness while Satan was tempting him? I mean, can you imagine what it would have been like?

            “Hello, this is Jesus. Oh, hi Peter. Listen, I hope this is important because I’ve only been in the wilderness for seven days, and this is the fourth time you’ve called, and Satan has just offered me dominion over all the earth, and I really need to think this through…It is important? Okay, what’s the matter?...No, I can’t tell you how to turn water into wine over the phone…Oh, damn it…No, not you, Peter. I can’t believe it, but some fat, bald guy just took a shot at me with his shotgun….No, it wasn’t Satan. Same eyes, though…Listen, Peter, please don’t call again unless it’s really important…Okay, tell everybody I said ‘hi’ and Satan says ‘hi’ too.”  

            As Jesus and Buddha and Thoreau and many others have known, it is only by squarely facing the demons and devils that appear to us during times of solitude without distraction that we have any possibility of ever being free of them. Otherwise they stay hidden from us, but continue to haunt our lives.

            For example, I read about one woman, who had just suffered a loss in her life but had been unable to face it. She committed herself to spend 24 hours in a motel room without any distractions and learned that she could tolerate the isolation without panic. In the journal she kept, she wrote, “I’m still amazed at how together my head must be - - perhaps it’s too soon for me to decompensate, but it’s been nine hours so far, and I don’t think I’m going to crash.” Toward the end of 24 hours, she wrote, “It’s obvious I am not going to go berserk…The sadness is becoming a part of me, and I doubt it will be so easy to run from it again.”

            I wonder what would happen if each one of us tried that, spent one day, just with ourselves, without anything to distract us - - no phone, no e-mail, no internet, no television, no radio, no books, no magazines, no newspaper. Perhaps only some paper and a pen to keep track of our thoughts. I wonder what reflections or questions or answers would emerge for each of us about our lives.

            We each are in desperate need of one another, and it is good when we seek one another out, and it is good when we are together with one another.

            And yet we each also need that time alone to rediscover the best gift we offer to one another and the rest of the world - - our true selves.

            The poet Gibran wrote:

            “Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music…And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”          

            I will pick Hiromi up at the airport a week from Monday. I will be very glad to see her again, but I have also enjoyed a little time to get to know for myself again the person she once fell in love with.

            My challenge to each of you is to find the time and space in your lives to do this as well, to find the time and space in your life to get to know yourself again. Just be on the lookout for fat, bald guys with shotguns.

            So may it be. Amen.