Loneliness vs. Solitude

I realize how ironic it is, but I promise I did not write this post as a result of the day/night I put it up…I am single this Valentine’s day, but I am joyful because I know that Jesus’ Sacred Heart burns with love for me…and that beats chocolate and flowers by a landslide (like KU this evening. Ha.) Anyways….

            What is the difference between loneliness and solitude? At first glance, they seem to mean the same thing: being or feeling distant from those around us that normally feel or are nearby. The definition for solitude as defined by dictionary.com is “aloneness,” but NOT “loneliness.” I’m in a philosophy class and a logic class this semester, so bear with me while I make these distinctions. Aloneness simply means being absent from others; loneliness on the other hand, is more like the feeling one has about aloneness. Loneliness is normally synonymous with abandonment and despair….but not with solitude. Why not?

            I have a theory that is maybe best explained if an example is used first. I came off of a wonderful weekend that was very tiring and simultaneously very relaxing recently. I found myself in the midst of the same group of people that I normally spend Sunday nights with at school…but something wasn’t right. I felt a tug in my heart, pulling me from where I was. I felt disconnected from my friends and at odds with them, even though I hadn’t seen them in a couple days. In the midst of perfectly good company…I felt lonely. Though I didn’t understand it at the time, I felt the need to get away from people, to seek solitude. That desire for peaceful solitude and paradoxically, an end to my loneliness, led me to the chapel, where I spent some much needed unwinding time with God, who was with me through the entire ordeal.

            The differences between solitude and loneliness are not the literary connotations or definitions we English-speakers assign to them.  The difference between solitude and loneliness is the persons or Person we are seeking. When we seek for fellow humans to fill our lives, we feel that they let us down and abandon us…or that we have somehow let them down and are not worth their time. This is a clever tool that Satan uses to isolate us from our Lord. God is the only who can fill us, and so He leaves us a little less than full, so that sometimes we’ll seek Him in the quiet places of our lives-like the chapel-and the quiet places of our hearts-in our aloneness and solitude.

“Bitterly she weeps at night, tears upon her cheeks, with not one to console her of all her dear ones; her friends have all betrayed her and become her enemies.” ~Lamentations 1:2

Who is she, Jerusalem, seeking? If you check out chapter 1, Jerusalem is abandoned and disgraced because “the Lord has punished her for her many sins.” (vs 5) Sin is what makes us feel truly, spiritually lonely. Satan is the one who makes us feel emotionally lonely…he convinces us first, to be filled by the worldly things and imperfect humans around us, and when it does not work, he then seeks to turn us against each other, insisting that it is either someone else’s fault, for abandoning us, or our fault, because we are not worthy of love.

“…I sought him…I found him whom my heart loves. I took hold of him and would not let him go…” ~Song of Songs 3:2, 4

Who is she, the beloved, seeking? Her lover, the One who might fill and fulfill her. And if you’ve read the book Song of Songs at all, she is definitely not lonely. But she seeks solitude in a garden, in a tower, in so many different places; she searches for her lover there, in the quiet places of her life and heart…in solitude. So who are you seeking? And how do you feel about it?

Grace to you in your aloneness, and peace!