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SOLITARY WORSHIP: Finding the Inner Path to the
Divine
by Anthony Maulucci
“It’s by yourself without ambassador that God
speaks to you.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My form of solitary worship is spent in meditation
and reading. I always begin with a prayerful
meditation, then read passages from various books
of divine wisdom. Frequently I conclude with a
song, accompanying myself on the guitar. The songs
are simple folk ballads, blues, or spirituals in
joyful praise of the Divine. I believe that singing
is good for the soul. In the novel Saint Francis by
Nikos Kazantzakis, when Francis is reprimanded for
singing, he replies, “And if I sing, it is because
God commanded me to sing. ‘Francis,’ He said to me,
‘you are no longer of any use: Elias assumed your
authority and threw you out of the brotherhood.
Take the lute, therefore; retire into solitude, and
sing!’”
Worship of God directly, without any ready-made
ritual, without the need of an intermediary, can be
a profoundly transforming experience. The Buddha
found enlightenment in solitude. Christ too spent
much time in solitude, communing with his father.
Moses, too, encountered God in solitary places such
as the top of Mount Sinai, and the psalms of David
are the expressions of a single soul alone with his
yearnings for the Divine.
The purity of this form of worship seems right to
me. Its simplicity, naturalness, and spontaneity
flow freely out of the center of my being. Is this
not the optimum place from which to worship God?
Judging from what Christ is reported to have said
in the Gospels, one should eschew elaborate and
shallow rituals that interfere with or do not allow
for a flow of spiritual energy to and from the
Creator. It is best to pray with full concentration
from an overflowing heart.
Our minds must be focused for faith to operate
freely. In solitude, we can move into a closer
relationship with the Divine, and this intimacy can
reinvigorate our trust in God’s loving acceptance
and forgiveness of our human frailties.
Is there anything wrong with this form of worship?
Some might call it self-centered. To them I would
reply that we can only be concerned with our own
souls, and that is certainly enough for any
earth-bound individual. After my solitary hour or
so of private meditation, contemplation, communion
and introspection, I feel cleansed and regenerated.
I feel uplifted and unburdened. I feel a lightness
of spirit.
Contemplation of the will of God, Saint Augustine
writes, is an essential element of prayer.
Contemplation at that level requires intense
concentration. This is simply not possible in large
groups. There are too many distractions: other
people’s movements, the pitch of their voices, the
clearing of throats. On our own, we have the space
and the silence to reflect upon the glorious
mysteries of divinity. In church, any church, this
process would be disturbed by perfunctory prayers,
the hollow-sounding responses, the overall
regimentation. In solitude, we can enjoy the
fulfillment of a profound inner journey that
usually culminates with a spiritual rejuvenation
and a peacefulness that strengthens us for the
challenges we must face.
Granted, some people need the comfort, security and
spiritual buoyancy of a group. Many people prefer
to share their joy and sorrow with others. Many
people feel lost without the moral guidance and
inspiration of clergy or elders. But that is not
true for everyone.
Whenever I’ve attended a church for the sake of my
children’s baptism or have taken them to a service
at Christmas or Easter, I felt somewhat
hypocritical and uneasy. The voice that I hear in
public prayer I do not recognize as my own, and on
each occasion I came away with a renewed sense that
I must follow my own solitary way. It feels
ingrained now, a part of my inner life, this need
for solitary worship.
So it happened through solitary worship that this
realization came to me: God has always been a part
of me, and knowing God is a matter of reconnecting
with what I have always known. This means I should
not only be looking for God in the outside world
but should be also seeking the Divine within. “It
is God in you that responds to God without,” wrote
Emerson in his notebooks in 1831. Thus I no longer
think of merely reaching out to God but of reaching
inside myself in order to behold the spark of
divinity that is within me and within every other
human being, animal, tree, flower, stone and star.
If this is a universe which was created by a divine
intelligence, and I believe it was, then God’s love
permeates that universe as an intrinsic part of
everything in it. In order to connect to the spirit
of God within us then, we have only to listen to
our hearts and find the inner path. The best way to
do this, I have found, is with solitary prayer and
meditation.
Copyright 2003 by Anthony S. Maulucci.
Anthony Maulucci is the author of four books and
the director of Green Tiger Productions (www.greentigerproductions.com)
which offers authors services and workshops in
creative writing using a holistic approach. You can
read excerpts from his fiction and poetry at
www.anthonymaulucci.com. Contact him directly at
quietcity@att.net
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