Living in the Veil: Solitude and Fellowship.

Writers live in a strange position where they must live both in solitude and surrounded by people. It's a very strange place to live. The soul craves isolation and dreads it. It's a strange thing to see as I continue in my private study on prayer (seen on my own blog, linked in the side bar).

Characters. Storyboards. Plotting. Putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard. Brainstorming. Thinking, delving, planning, rethinking...

And people. Yes, people.

Writers aren't really misanthropes, most of us. But, for the most part, we're so caught up and distracted psychologically, emotionally, and physically, by this thing called writing that it consumes us as surely as fire devours everything in its path.

Talk to a writer for five minutes, and his eyes will become distant. He starts talking and using phrases that make sense only to him, only because of these countless hours spent with his obsession. It isn't that he doesn't want to eat, but that the Story has become his food. It isn't that he doesn't want to talk to you, but that his mind is so deep in the Story that he can't distinguish you from one of his characters. And it isn't that he doesn't want to listen, but that he's listening to you and thinking: The possibilities!

But more on that when we get to conflict.

Solitude.

Writers are most often physically alone. Again, it isn't because they hate or fear people -- although they may feel that way on occasion. But to write requires privacy. It requires some form of commitment, of resolve, otherwise you'd give it up. It requires not caring if anyone knows what's going on in the cave where the battle takes place.

So you study the story. You mull it over, meditate on it, consider the possibilities and ramifications. You know the characters as intimately as yourself. You love some and despise others.

But you are indeed alone.

And this phenomenon is permeating. At any given moment, I can take a sheet of paper and write several lines of dialogue or prose. It may be terrible, but it's possible. On command I can tell you, with more detail than any sane person wishes, everything about whatever project I'm working on.

Why is this?

Solitude.

Very little of this is physical isolation, so I've noticed. But a writer eats, sleeps, lives, and breathes The Story.

Consider this, though:

The disciple of Christ must, by necessity, be alone with God. You spend so much of your life trying to juggle temporal and eternal obligations: Study, prayer, fellowship, job, family, friends, entertainment, school, necessities, church...

You'd think this would be impossible. And, honestly, it should be. A day is 24 hours and we sleep for at least eight of them. We work for another eight, which leaves only eight hours. School requires homework -- easily three or four. Then the act of eating. Then two hours of church on Sunday. Then recreation. Then family. Then a movie with a friend. Then paying the bills. Then...Wait, I ran out of my hours five hours ago!

Consider this, though. How do we live in ceaseless communion with Christ; how do we pray without end and how do we "meditate on his laws day and night" if these things are so compartmentalized?

My mother can pray on command. She can quote Scripture on command. She can sing to Jesus without any preparation or forethought, and she can go into a discourse with you on the principles of Christianity without so much as a blinking.

She eats, sleeps, and breathes this thing called following Christ.

Writers and Christians aren't so different, I don't think. You have to be alone, away from people. And yet, you must be with people, constantly, or you'll self-combust.

Remember: "This is my commandment, that you love one another, that your joy may be full."

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

We stay in constant communion with God. We never break fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We live in the world, but we aren't really a part of the world anymore. We're nomads lingering on the journey home.

We meditate on his word. We study it. We go off with God mull over the ramifications and possibilities. We plot. Sometimes we plot our prayers.

Living in the veil requires solitude and fellowship. There is little distinction between when you're alone, actively praying, and when you're so accustomed to devoting yourself to thinking of all these things that you do it both consciously and unconsciously, always ready to carry on dialogue with or about these things.