On Mirrors, Thunderstorms, and Gollum: Reflections on Reflection

It was a new summer and the air tasted fresh and was laced with coming thunderstorms. And I sat alone surrounded by green forest, watching the sun set and rise and set again. For the past week and a few days I had been hiking as part of a college outdoor program. The hiking trip ended with a 48 hour time of solitude and fasting. I longed for those 48 hours to end as soon as they began.

The solitude was painful to me and I longed for home, replaying in my mind again and again the imagined scene of my parents greeting me when I returned from the wilderness trip. My breathing became short at times, and I felt on the verge of panic. I read several books of the Bible, my eyes glazing over as I wondered if I heard thunder in the distance or an animal in the brush. I was not usually afraid of thunderstorms but the thought of them in the wilderness put me on edge. I felt so exposed to nature, to myself, to God. What if He was not good? What if He wanted to tell me things I did not want to hear?

Yet in the stillness and in my fear, He spoke both gently and pointedly to me: “Lissy, who is your home?” This question has tugged at me ever since I returned from that trip in the mountains. It has led me on the search in my heart for idolatry and a search for adventures reminding me again that my home is Christ.

The quietness of those few days carved out room in my mind and heart to listen and realize that I am not good at listening, yet God still wants to speak lovingly into my life. I always say that I would never go on a wilderness trip like this again, but in the back of my mind I wonder if I will ever be able to recognize God’s loving call for me as clearly as I did in those anxious hours alone.

But often times I’ve wondered, “What does solitude accomplish and how successful is it?”

The truth is, I can’t tell you what you will find, or that solitude will feel safe. We all have pain we must work through. I don’t agree that “time always heals” when our deepest pains we can tend to push away, or that our “entertainment and consumer-driven society” is the only thing that socializes us to fear being alone. In many ways our culture reflects our fears kept at bay for each other’s sakes.

Sometimes I stop and catch a glimpse of myself, realizing I have been eluding my own company. Sometimes I fill-up my life so that the only moment I truly have with myself is spent brushing my teeth. I’ll look into the mirror only long enough to ask questions like, “I wonder if I need to shave?” or “Who am I fooling?” As I commute to school and work, thoughts and worries exercise my brain, if only it were a muscle. “Go, go, go.” Whatever it is in my brain that reacts to my thoughts—entertaining some and resisting others—is on both defense and active combat.

No, I am not Gollum; however, conversations I will have with myself—where my conscience and my passions rub against each other, where I battle loneliness with illusion, where I am comforted, humiliated, or haunted—have left me wondering before. 

Once during a class we talked about reflection and spent an hour with our eyes closed. I kept a wool hat over my eyes, as I gracefully directed my thoughts like bubbles away. I don’t know where they went, but that part of my brain that reacts to my “pop-ups” (a word we use for the un-invited thoughts that sit in the back of our minds) had a one hour vacation. 

For me it isn’t always clear what solitude might accomplish, but it is clear to me that solitude is the only place where healing begins. Bonhoeffer rightly offers, “There is such a thing as forbidden, self-indulgent silence, a proud, offensive silence.” So let me forever divide outer silence and inward solitude. To be in solitude is to be with God. Prayer turns our heart's loneliness towards God as we posture our hearts to receive His presence.