Furthermore…

End of the world type carries sign:

   REPENT!

(you, not me)

On talk radio I hear people refer to ‘unpacking’ a topic, a term which seems to be a useful stand-in for ‘exploring,’ ‘looking into for the first time,’ or ‘open up.’ It conveys a sense of vigorous competence, pushing forward sensibly to whatever might be encountered.

Opening up ”alone,” I remember when I was considering joining a religious order.  I went into their chapel to try to get some clarity. I never felt so alone. The gold metallic fixtures seemed icy cold and inert. My inner resources, my reason for being there, seemed to have fled. I can’t enter into such a cold, metallic world alone, I felt. Somehow the realization that I would have God, prayer and the sacraments, and communal life eluded me.

About how we can be either holy, or wholly, alone: I think that on the one hand there are the hermits, stylites and desert monks, seeking and trying to love God. On the other, there are those with anti-social tendencies, self-absorption, or such unhygienic habits or obnoxious personalities as to make them social pariahs.

People with some devotion to God likely have a mindset which requires love, or at least charitable treatment of, others. Still, there can be legitimate reasons for ignoring or excluding others, or course, such as a shy girl trying to give a would-be boyfriend the message that she’s not interested, without the unpleasant business of directly telling him to get lost, or even letting on that she is aware of his existence.  How good it is to be alone, she might think.