How are you with being alone?

Not artificially alone, where you’re accompanied by the clamor of the internet, the relentless banging of your demands, the amusement of games, or the noise of distraction.

I mean, truly alone.

The type of alone where it’s only you and your thoughts.

The type of alone where you truly have to come face to face with yourself and who you are.

The type of alone where you can no longer blame shift or justify your actions.

The type of alone where there is no one to see the walls you’ve built; where it’s so quiet within the barrier of your self-imposed fortress, you could hear the soft echo of your own breath.

The type of alone where you begin to stand at the edge of the abyss and wonder if there’s a place for you in it.

The type of alone where you begin to know thyself.

Again, I ask you… how are you with being alone?

Should we ever come face to face with this dark sea of darkness, it may be an unsettling moment. This is a sacred ground where fear becomes real. It can be uncomfortable in the silence. Are you so used to the rush and the noise and the constant stimulation that to embrace being still would be worse than eating a box of nails just for something to do?

If we will not come to such a place, will we ever come face to face with ourselves?

And if we cannot come face to face with ourselves, will we ever come face to face with each other?

If we cannot come face to face with ourselves, surely, we cannot come face to face with God. C.S. Lewis wrote about this in Till We Have Faces. How similar are we to Orual, going about reigning over our empires of dirt from behind a veil?

And in so doing, immersed in the constant connection with the world around us, I have to wonder if we have lost connection with the world right in front of us.

The voyage of forgetting is a slow drift. What once was a sharp point has dulled to an easy round edge that rolls smooth and frictionless like a ball bearing in a fidget spinner. Our heated passions cool with the icy waters of the disinterested around us. Our strength wanes as weariness and age and the busy-ness of life saps the vigor we once had. Our zeal begins to dull with disenchantment over the truly wonderous. Our vision clouds over with salty cataracts of a long journey and we wander for 40 years in the wilderness when we’ve lost sight of who we are. Slowly, surely, subtly, we begin to forget. When we forget, we drift. The probability of us drifting safely to our destinations is not high.

This is a precipice we all must stand at. We are in danger of being lulled to sleep, dreamily forgetting who we even are, like Prince Rilian who fell under the spell of the Lady of the Green Kirtle in The Silver Chair. The haze of the world’s rising incense brings its own sinister enchantments, and suddenly when confronted with who we might actually be, the spell does its defensive work. It becomes impossible to know thyself when our drifting dreams weave their justifications for why we are the way we are.

In our knowledge, we can forget. In the focus of our eyes where we’re led in time, we can forget. The journeys and pursuits and righteous acts can all become fogs that envelop us in a forgetful sea. We are not so good at remembering.

This is why one of the primary mechanisms of faithfulness in Scripture is remembering. Passover, let it be a testimony, raise an ebenezer, raise a monument, do this in remembrance of Me.

The band Ghost Ship, once upon a time ago, sang a doxology to remembrance.

A maxim I had once returned to is our situation is more desperate than we realize. In all honesty, I have not said that in a while. It’s easy to forget. We are not as strong as we think we are.

Rich Mullins knew it.

Years for me, it’s been easy to just wake up, get caught up in whatever is in front of me that day, scarf down breakfast, and get straight into the task at hand. That task could take the form of a meaningless routine, which can be identified as something to fill the time and space. Squander may be a better word. Even as I write this, I’ve entered a new struggle to pray and read my Bible. The fog comes for me, too. I can feel it.

We need each other’s investments. We need each other’s prayers. We need each other’s supports. We need each other’s attention that isn’t split with a device. We need each other’s physical contact. We need to slow down enough to the point we can see each other as actual human beings made in the image of God who are struggling in our weakness or drowning in our sin. We need to throw the life preserver when someone’s eyes have been cleared to the point of knowing they need a life preserver.

The world is full of proud people. The one I see most frequently is the one who looks back at me in the mirror.

Unless we learn to slow down, be still, get away from the chaotic ruminations of our own distractions and obsessions or the insistent noise of internet echo chambers, know that the Lord is God and in doing that finally know who we are, we will join the proud.

The glories of distant shores, of Aslan’s country, are for the humble beggars who have found bread. Crowns will only be welcome if they are cast at the King’s feet. It’s only when we can quiet the cacophony of all the distortions that inundate us daily that we may finally be able to come face to face with God, the devil, and ourselves.

The roaring lion seeks anyone whom he can devour, and not all lions are as benevolent as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia.

There are two verses I believe apply here, and they’re two sides of a coin. After that, I’ll share a practical method that cleared some fog for me.

It is also possible to be still, to sleep and to slumber, enchanted with the stillness of warmth and rest and comfort, and not know anything or anyone.

I am going to share a very practical method that I’ve personally found beneficial. This was my own application of the goal setting article I posted earlier this year, which you can tap here to read.

My S.M.A.R.T. goal was this:

Then I created a one month habit tracker in my paper journal to track every day. I drew a mini calendar for Sunday through Saturday and five rows deep to cover the entire 30 day stretch. I gave a check mark for success and an X for failure. As an extra challenge, I added a ! to every day I didn’t access any social media until after lunch. Not during. After.

Now, I wasn’t very consistent on marking down the daily checks and X’s on paper, but what I found was that on the days I stuck with the goal, I was more present. On the days I didn’t check social media until after lunch, I barely checked them afterwards.

This own personal discovery is what made the opening chapter of Reclaiming Conversation so poignant for me.

I know keeping track of this on paper isn’t going to do me much good, but I have found that there is benefit to not reaching for your phone first thing in the morning. There’s benefit to not logging in, getting connected, updating yourself with the news, reading your emails, checking tracking information, posting content, turning on the TV, and listening to podcasts before you set the tone for your day by being alone with the Lord, just you, Him, and the Bible in front of you. Praying as you read, allowing the Scripture to emblazon your prayers.

Lord, give them strength and peace.

Lord, be their strength and their shield.

Lord, give me mercy.

I am all about the grace of God because I am damned without it. Even this S.M.A.R.T. goal I just talked about, that I found good benefit in, is something I’ve lost as I’ve retreated back into the noise of the year.

There is danger in many words, as it’s possible for me to create my own noise of productivity that shields me from the real truth.

But… am I… are you… leaning on the grace of God to not get serious about dealing with the sin in our life? Are we banking on grace while we amuse ourselves into a dull state to where we don’t have to think about that which we need grace for? That is the scary question.

A mentor once broke down the word amusement with me. Muse means to think, to consider. The prefix A- is a negative, a lack of (think A-theist being a lack of theism, belief). To be amused is to lack consideration. Instead of looking in the mirror, seeing our warts and all, we turn off our brains and amuse ourselves to death. Spiritually, emotionally, and physically. We become like Pinocchio, avoiding who we were created to be and abdicating to Pleasure Island. It’s no wonder all the boys who chose that route became asses.

Stay Anchored and keep fighting the good fight,

~ J.P. Simons ⚓️

PS: If you haven’t already ordered it, please check out my first book, Pray Then Plow: Practical Steps For Men Who Won’t Give Up.

“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading the human’s mind against the enemy,” says Screwtape.

I promise, I don’t intentionally line these up. I’ve been switching around from Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks and sharing chapter by chapter of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and narrated by the brilliant John Cleese. Providence would have it how these lines fall in pleasant places.