Withdraw

I am a big fan of Annie Dillard. She loved nature and wrote about it with a simplicity that St. Francis of Assisi would have been proud of.

If you are ever looking for a good read, here are a few suggestions that will leave you wanting more of her writings.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek published in 1974 when she was 28 years old.

Holy the Firm...an insightful analyses of pain and suffering, written in 1977.

Teaching a Stone to Talk...a persistent quest for the quietness of God's voice. 1982.

Skimming through her writings I ran across an interesting concept. It intrigued me when I read it and the more I think about it the more it makes me wonder why it has my attention.

She had a cabin at Tinker Creek where in "Walden Pond" fashion she watched God's creation. She called it her "anchorhold." That's the word that has my attention.

I did a little further reading and discovered that she was alluding to a concept derived from the Greek word anachoreo, meaning to, "withdraw to a place apart."

Hermits in the Middle Ages often would "anachoreo" to spend time with God. These hermits were called anchorites.

They would inhabit lean-tos attached to the walls of the nearest cathedral. These shacks had one window through which the hermit could look at the world while still attached to the walls of the church.

There it is. That's the image that I am thinking about.

I want to be in a place where I am anchored to the Church (universal, rather than denominational) with a window through which I can view the culture that I live and breathe in.

Annie Dillard saw her cabin on Pilgrim Creek as an anchorhold.

I don't have a cabin on a creek. I don't have a lean to attached to the church I attend.

But I do want to be connected to His Church looking out the window on the world He created. Seems so simple, yet it is easy to get so attached to the church that we fail to look out the window and see our culture. It is even tempting to be so immersed in the culture that we fail to see our need for His Church.

It's a tension that we are called to live with. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it isn't...

What do you think?