Secrecy and solitude are values that belong to the very essence of personality.
A Person is a person in so far as he has a secret and is a solitude of his own that cannot be communicated to anyone else. If I love a person, I willl ove that which most makes him a person: the secrecy, the hiddenness, the solitude of his own individual being, which God alone can penetrate and understand.
.... Our failure to respect the intimate spiritual privacy of other persons reflects a secret contempt for God Himself. It springs from the crass pride of fallen man, who wants to prove himself a god by prying into everything that is not his own business.
(T. Merton, No Man is an Island)
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Solitude and personhood
Interesting take on personality, revelation and hiddenness - what do you think?