A Place For Solitude

“And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” – Mark 11:11

This verse strikes me as anticlimactic in the extreme. Jesus has just fulfilled ancient prophecy, the humble King entering the great city with much fanfare—and Mark says, he basically looked around a bit, then left. Bethany was a village about two miles east of Jerusalem, home to Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon. In this final week of his life, Jesus doesn’t stay in Jerusalem, where all the action is, but in a place away from the public eye, among those who loved him.

Do you have a place you can retreat to with regularity and ease? Thomas Merton writes in New Seeds of Contemplation, “Although it is true that this solitude is everywhere, there is a mechanism for finding it that has some reference to actual space, to geography, to physical isolation… There should be at least a room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you. You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of other men… Once you have found such a place, be content with it, and do not be disturbed if a good reason takes you out of it. Love it, and return to it as soon as you can, and do not be too quick to change it for another.”

We live so much of our lives in reference to other people and events that it is good to have a place for untethering. There’s a corner in our house I go to, near a window from which I can see an orange tree, in a room with a door that shuts. Jesus sought solitude, and here in the last week of his life he finds a place away from the action. Where is your place?