A Quiet Room
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Blaise Pascal(1623-1662)
Rarely has this well known saying of the famous French mathematician and theologian been so powerfully illustrated as in the recent days of world-wide lock down caused by Covid 19. This can be seen as operating on two levels.
Firstly there has been the reluctance of some of the populace in any non-totalitarian state to comply with the recommended social isolation and distancing - our literal ‘inability to sit quietly in a room alone’. Linked to this has been the reluctance of some governments to implement this measure soon enough as a public health strategy to prevent the spread of the virus, knowing how difficult it would be to sustain it for the necessary period of time, and rightly fearful of the economic and social consequences of imposing it.
But secondly and more profoundly, there is the personal, psychological and spiritual challenge that social isolation poses and that Pascal is referring to. We are naturally social beings and our lives are nurtured and sustained by relationships with family, friends, neighbours and wider communities such as faith based organisations, clubs and societies. The loss of face-to-face interaction with all these can cause a sense of profound dislocation, and for some of us severe stress. We are not used to having to sit quietly in a room alone, and even our modern internet linked electronic communication devices, welcome as they are in these circumstances, fail to fill the gap left by the lack of normal social interaction that we hitherto took for granted.
And yet, the Christian mystics down the centuries are unanimous in their wisdom that it is only by sitting quietly in a room alone that we truly and perhaps painfully get to know our true selves and God. The experience of mysticism is union with God. In this experience the mystic no longer exists as an autonomous ego but becomes one with the Oneness of God. This can only arise when we realise that our ego-self is an illusory veil that masks our true divine self, and that only in this true self we encounter God, the Being of all beings, at the deepest point of our own being. God is not someone ‘other’ but is our shared essential identity. Union with God is freedom from suffering the separation of solitary confinement within the mortal sinful self, and liberation into the expansive, all embracing, eternal loving nature of God Himself. We experience the mystery of God hugging us in all-encompassing arms. Such can be the fruit, the mystics tell us, of sitting quietly in a room alone.
So what has this to do with PRIME? Well, the hard to define mission and vision of PRIME involves at its heart seeing our patients, colleagues and students not as ‘others’ but as those who share our common identity in God, unclassified by the labels we impose that traditionally govern our transactions with one another. In all our endeavours as healthcare professionals, we seek to recognise and express the underlying love of God that is present for all, in all and through all. And how do we resource ourselves to do this day-by-day and hour-by-hour, especially in times of extreme busyness and stress? Well, surprisingly enough, as the mystics have taught us, one way is by sitting quietly in a room alone. It is in the soul baring, honest and unflinching humble loving attention to God in silence that we can be nurtured and restored, experiencing His love for us that we seek to share with all. Jesus told us, ‘when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.’(1) He Himself, we are told, regularly withdrew to the mountains and wilderness to find that solitude with His Father that equipped Him for His ministry.(2)
So four centuries after his birth, Pascal’s words can still teach us, following in the foot steps of the Lord as He found those places to sit quietly alone in the presence of the Father, God, the All in All. Hopefully in these challenging and unprecedented times, by God’s grace we can sit quietly in a room alone, and so equip ourselves to be part of the solution to humanity’s problems, rather than part of the problem.
Dr Huw Morgan
References: Matthew 6; 6. Luke 5; 16
