When You Are Alone

This afternoon my wife took the kids to her dad's and I had the house to myself. I'm an introvert by nature--not extreme by any means, but I appreciate my alone time. One of my favorite memories from college was leaving parties early and walking back to my dorm room on a Friday night. I liked being out and with friends and meeting people, but appreciated my time alone more.

Since getting married and starting a family, though, I find I do not like to be alone as much, especially at home. I don't just love my wife, I actually like her too, and like spending time with her. And as much as the kids drive me crazy sometimes, I miss them terribly when I am away from them. 

When I was single and in my twenties, I would suffer pangs of extreme loneliness, even when I was around other people. When I would get back to my apartment after being out, a kind of subtle panicky dread would settle in, which is weird for an introvert. I simply felt vulnerable. I felt very alone, both existentially and physically. 

The other day I went out to the chicken coop to give the chickens fresh water. I saw on the side of the run a little part of the metal fencing was torn back, and there was also a baseball sized hole at the base of it; it looked like something, a predator, was trying to get to them. I stapled the fence and blocked the hole, but I realized come spring I am going to have to build a more fortified run for them, as this one was cobbled together rather quickly.

I feel very similar these past few weeks, that something is trying to 'get in,' trying to pull back a part of the fence around my soul or burrow underneath. And that leverage always seems to start with a lapse in prayer, the corner in which the devil seeks to weasel in. 

Since our consecration to the Virgin Mary in October, I had resolved to pray the rosary every day. I had been doing so for the past few months, but every now and then was a night when I was too spent, or to out of routine, to maintain the practice. I could have found the time (we always make time for what we hold as important) but the day just got away from me, and the Christmas break felt like it kind of threw routine off. 

The reality is I got lazy. And that initial 'vacation' from prayer was leveraged from a day to another, and the aversion to prayer increased. Every time I thought about going to pray, something else around the house would seem more attractive--going to the fridge, or searching for something on the internet, or putzing around in the garage. Praying became hard, and in becoming hard, it became unattractive. I was on break after all--a time to eat, drink, relax, and be merry. 

But the Virgin made promises to those who would pray the rosary--all five decades--every day. Not every other day, or five days a week. And I hadn't been doing that. Was it a surprise things have been starting to go slightly downhill in my spiritual life? I had stepped outside of her protection, lost communication, and left the house unlocked as I wandered down the street to take a aimless stroll. 

I was having trouble understanding it too--wasn't it just a couple months ago prayer came so effortlessly? I looked forward to it, and even was up at 2am to pray in the middle of the night when it was quiet. And so pride worked its way in too--how could something like this happen to me? I was exercising my will, my God given free will, but I was directing it down the path of least resistance. When the going got tough, the tough didn't get going. Hell, I wasn't that tough to begin with anyway. It was like walking on one of those moving walkways at the airport and thinking a pace of 8 miles an hour was the normal state of being.

With chinks in the armor, and being alone at these kinds of times, I am realizing there really is no way around, no shortcut--you have to do the work. We have to work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). That doesn't mean we are saved by works, or we earn our salvation, but it does mean we (I) need to exercise our (my) will when the escalator stops and we are still a mile away from the terminal. We need to co-operate and do our part. 

But that doesn't happen when we turn our backs on those bodyguards who were meant to protect us (the Blessed Virgin, the saints, our guardian angel) and switch our walkie talkies off to go it alone. The devil is so sly, like the weasel trying to get into the chicken coop. He's exploit any weakness (and he knows ours) to get us not to pray and to separate us from the flock, whittling us down until the time is right to present some temptation to sin (as if not praying wasn't bad enough) that looks too good to pass up.

Don't stop praying. I'm writing this to remind myself; even when it is feels meaningless, even when it is arduous, even when it is inconvenient, and even when it gives no comfort. Like love, prayer needs to be an act of the will, not a feeling or a thought or a good intention. The rosary is tangibly powerful protection, and takes 15-20 minutes, which as Fr. Ripperger says, coincidentally, is the minimum amount of time we should be devoting to prayer each day. 

Like Aaron and Hur, who help up the arms of Moses as the Israelites were in battle, we sometimes need people to prime the pump and jump start our spiritual batteries when we have let them drain from not running the car often enough. Once it gets started, it's up to us to do the work to keep things running, to dispose ourselves to be open to receiving God's grace. 

Please pray for me, to keep slugging through and praying even when I don't feel like it, as I'm afraid of what happens if the weasel gets in when I am alone.