Solitude: Our Vintner

Solitude: Our Vintner
Scott Lyons
8/21/2013
Solitude helps us on the path of sanctification, our communion with and conversion to Christ, our perfection in love. It makes a human into a full person. We must flee the world to embrace solitude. Our destination is Christ; solitude is an avenue.

Solitude is not an easy road. We long to be part of whatever currently seems to us to be important. But solitude turns away from this, longing instead to be in the life of the most holy Trinity, within that perfect communion of love. This is not a turning away from loving other people but an intentional turn towards the desert, embracing solitude so that I might be able to love people as I ought. And while solitude is not easy, it is fruitful. I have heard it said that the best wine grapes are grown in poor soil. Their wild growth must be checked and pruned back or else worthless grapes will be produced. The vintner is looking for grapes full of flavor and vitality. So he stresses the vines, prunes them severely, limits water, and even risks the entire crop at times so that he might see the fruit that he desires. The stresses on the vine produce intensity of flavor.

We are wine grapes. Even our Lord, the Scriptures say, learned obedience through suffering. Without suffering, without the trial, then the subject is unproven. It is not that Christ was disobedient and learned to be obedient (as we must). Rather, his obedience was revealed through his suffering: the poorest of soil, revealing the most perfect of grapes, producing the best wine.

Solitude brings us face to face with ourselves. It is useful in leaving nothing to us but a true image, a correct understanding of who we are. Perhaps you hate quietness, or you crave distraction in order to avoid some pain in your life. Discipline yourself with solitude. The desert father Abba Moses said, "The man who flees and lives in solitude is like a bunch of grapes ripened by the sun, but he who remains amongst men is like an unripe grape" (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 140).

Distraction can be a terrible evil. It can be, as Neil Postman put it, a matter of amusing ourselves to death. Now the distractions themselves are innocent enough, but our obsession with them can lead us astray from our true journey, our true goal—like the lotus-eaters and Odysseus. Distraction is, for many of us, our drug of choice. We use it to numb the pain of life. We distract ourselves in order to avoid ourselves, life, and our sin.

Solitude rips a person away from distraction. It makes us confront our lives and ourselves. It helps us confess our sin. It is not, at the beginning, a pleasant process. Sometimes it becomes increasingly unpleasant as we see the extent of our sinfulness. We confess our sin and see the next layer—we see how ancient it is. Solitude is a ruthless but useful tool. It requires time to unearth the true men or women God intended us to be.

The spiritual disciplines are vintners, friends, teachers, and guides. They are the path to Christ, to becoming more like him, and to loving God and others more perfectly. Solitude is an effective discipline if we are willing that it be so. May solitude be your vintner, that you might be an acceptable offering—the work of human hands, moved and strengthened by grace, poured out, offered up, and made acceptable to God.