In 1845, Henry David Thoreau built a small cabin on Walden Pond and lived there for two years. He said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. . .and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived.”
Thoreau’s cabin was a mere ten by fifteen by eight feet. One of the most quoted lines from his 1854 memoir, Walden, is taken from Chapter VI entitled VISITORS: “I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” Solitude, friendship, and society are ways that Thoreau balanced life.
Do you remember singing these words in church: “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer.” The Gospels observe this habit of the Master: “In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” Indispensable to the Christian is the time of solitude. And we need to balance our solitude with friendship. We need both. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, wrote: 'Let him who cannot be alone beware of community; let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.'
Jesus was inspired to minister to “all that were sick,” but he also knew how to balance his time so that he could relish the company of a few close friends. Jesus enjoyed intimate friendship, much as Thoreau did in his cabin at Walden. It is spiritually healthy to balance solitude with friendship; and to balance both with society. “It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain,” said Thoreau. “I have had twenty- five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.” In other words, there is always room for society.
And to follow the example of Jesus is to bring the gospel to bear upon society. ”Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.” When we share our means with those of our community, we are proclaiming the gospel to society. The first frame in a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip shows Calvin walking with a box of eggs in his arms, his tiger, Hobbes, right behind him. “You’re going to juggle eggs?” Hobbes asks. “It’s a metaphor for life, Hobbes,” replies Calvin. Holding three eggs in his hands, he explains: “Each egg represents one of life’s concerns and the goal is to give each the appropriate amount of individual attention while simultaneously watching and guiding all the others.” As he tosses the three eggs in the air, he continues, “Life is about balance and staying quick and alert as everything threatens to spin out of control.” In the last frame broken eggs are everywhere as Hobbes comments: “And sometimes we make a big mess of things.”
“But the important thing is persistence,” counters Calvin, holding up three more eggs.
Life is about balance. We are intended to give solitude, friendship, and society each appropriate attention while guiding the others. Faith is making this attempt again and again, all our days, so that we may live deliberately, and not, when we come to die, discover we have not lived.
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