Spiritual Mirages: Me and the Tiny House Hermitage

A “Zinn” tiny house, designed by Jay Shafer.

I started calling myself a part-time hermit to honor something about me I’d been neglecting. (Also,  to lighten up about it with a fun word like “hermit.”) I wanted to give myself a playful way to say that I love being by myself, working by myself, and just looking out the window and thinking about things.

Maybe this is true for you, too and that’s why you subscribe to this newsletter.

Or maybe solitude isn’t your thing but you read this newsletter because you think it should be.

Or maybe you’re longing for something in your spiritual life and you’re not sure whether it’s solitude or something else.

I have noticed that there are a lot of ways we can get lost, trying to figure out what we want in our spiritual lives.

When I was a parish priest, stressed out, overstimulated, and giving every ounce of myself to my church (to my detriment and theirs), I often daydreamed about a tiny house on some land in the middle of nowhere.

One year, in my obsessive Zillow searchings, I came across a tiny cottage that strummed all my heart strings, for sale at a vaguely plausible price point. It looked just like a hermitage should. My husband, with generous grace, came with me on a many-hour drive to meet a realtor and see it: a little red house with white trim on the edge of a lake. It was adorable. But also mildewy, awkward, and well, very tiny. In the car on the way home, my husband said out loud what we were both thinking: the house was not a hermitage, it was a lemon. Maybe also a red herring: we couldn’t buy solitude. The hermitage was a mirage -- a “hermirage,” if you will — a placeholder for what I was longing for, but not the thing itself.

Sometimes, our souls are so hungry and ungrounded that we get desperate and grasp after mirages, symbols, or a guilt-inducing list of “I ought tos.” We focus on externals instead of what’s happening inside ourselves. Because changing our lives may feel impossible — or perhaps it is changing our unrealistic expectations for ourselves that seems impossible — we focus on a dream or a mirage, because what we really need feels impossible to make real otherwise. A mirage or a list can offer us a kind of comfort, that may help us get us through a tough time. The thing is, they can also leave us dissatisfied or distracted, because they keep us from focusing on what would truly be spiritually nourishing for us. This can take a while to sort out, though. I had to seriously chase after that tiny house mirage before I could see it for what it was.

My hunch is that spirituality mirages can take many forms. Maybe you have an idealized vision of what you wish your life could look like if it was “truly” spiritual fulfilled. Maybe of the perfect church congregation you’d like to belong to. Maybe of an idealized sort of spiritual person, pastor, or parent you wish you could be like. Maybe a to-do list of spiritual activities that you are sure, if you could only make time to do them, would make you a more spiritual, peaceful, effective, or whatever, sort of person. Maybe you are grinding along through a calendar full of things you feel you must do, and exasperated that you aren’t feeling more satisfied or fulfilled.

The thing is, life is messy. Your spiritual life is not a perfectable kind of situation. It’s about being intentional and mindful, but also a kind of letting go and giving up. Like, maybe the Holy Spirit just wants to hang out with you sometimes. Maybe you feel God’s presence best when you’re doing something that doesn’t seem very spiritual at all. Maybe Jesus glows through you most when you just show up as yourself. What this means for you may take some self-examination, but can also just show up in a moment, or be something you trip over when you were meaning to do something else.

If you want to pray or reflect more about this, I have some invitations to offer:

- Identify, with self-compassion, any mirages you may be gazing toward to get you through a hard time. What need or longing could the mirage be pointing to, deeper inside yourself?

- Notice if you may be making spiritual to do lists or fulfilling spiritual “duties” without getting much nourishment or joy. What is the tension or connection between what you feel you ought to do and what you want on a deeper level?

- Wonder, with gentle curiosity, how God’s presence and love tend to show up in your life.

- Give thanks for what is working for you. If your spiritual life, your sense of God’s nearness and love is, in fact, restorative, and manageable in this life as you are living it now, say alleluia. There may be a lot that is already blessing you.

Often, what we are longing for is already present in us, somehow or other.

Darn it all.

NEW COVER!

There’s a new cover for my book, Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year C, coming out this month. Shortages of paper, glue, and labor are hitting the publishing industry so my publisher has switched from a leatherette cover to a scuff-resistant laminate. And now it’s in color! Coming soon, also: the price will be lowered (I think you will receive a partial refund if you paid the initial price: $40-45), which I think is wonderful because the more people can afford it, the more people can use it. But the new price has not yet been determined.

JOIN MY LAUNCH TEAM

Help me spread the word about my new book! All are welcome. All you have to do: (1) Preorder the book. (2) Post about the book on your preferred social media. (3) Read and give one honest review of the book — on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBook.com, or wherever. Sign up at this link and I'll send you more details, a reminder, and a signed bookplate as a thank you. I am grateful for all and anyone's interest and support!

MY HAIR IS GETTING LONG

Here’s a photo Adam took the other day. I love my hair both short and long, and I do like how the layered cut (and the autumn humidity) makes my waves curl!