Ren­der­ing Our­selves Useless

The Root of Our Fear 

[There is a par­tic­u­lar resis­tance] that invari­ably crops up any time we con­sid­er times of gen­uine soli­tude. It is the almost over­whelm­ing feel­ing that we will be passed over. Now, what we say is, ​“I want to be avail­able to help when­ev­er there is a cri­sis or prob­lem.” But what real­ly con­cerns us is that peo­ple will get along quite well with­out us! You see, this strikes right at the root of our fear of becom­ing unim­por­tant, unneed­ed, insignif­i­cant, useless.

This is pre­cise­ly why soli­tude is such a fun­da­men­tal dis­ci­pline of the spir­i­tu­al life. As long as we are at the cen­ter of the action, we feel indis­pens­able. And we are sore­ly tempt­ed to micro-man­age every­one around us … for their good, of course! But gen­uine expe­ri­ences of soli­tude under­cut all the pre­tense. In the very act of retreat we resign as CEO of the uni­verse. We entrust peo­ple into the hands of God. We allow oth­ers to devel­op and grow with­out our con­stant over­sight. This, in time, gives us a pre­cious free­dom when we are among peo­ple — the free­dom to serve and be served with­out the slight­est need to man­age or con­trol either peo­ple or circumstances.

Ren­der­ing Our­selves Useless 

Besides, it isn’t all that bad to become use­less. Good teach­ers hope in time to make them­selves use­less to those under their tute­lage. Stu­dents unable to think for them­selves and thus for­ev­er depen­dent upon their teach­ers have not been taught well. Par­ents are exceed­ing­ly use­ful to young chil­dren. But good par­ents are con­stant­ly work­ing to make them­selves use­less as they nur­ture a grow­ing self-gov­ern­ment in their chil­dren. Per­pet­u­al depen­den­cy in a daugh­ter or son is a grotesque thing indeed.

An old writer, Hen­ry Clay Trum­bull, once said, ​“There are ever two ways of striv­ing to fill one’s place in the world: one is by seek­ing to prove one’s self use­ful; the oth­er, by striv­ing to ren­der one’s self use­less. The first way is the com­mon­er and the more attrac­tive; the sec­ond is the rar­er and the more noble.” Reg­u­lar expe­ri­ences of spir­i­tu­al retreat and gen­uine soli­tude will empow­er us and give us the per­spec­tive nec­es­sary to ren­der our­selves useless.