Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.—Matt. 22:37

When the world does not like you it takes revenge on you; if it happens to like you, it takes its revenge still by corrupting you. Your only resource is to work far from the world, as indifferent to its judgments as you are ready to serve it. A. G. Sertillanges

Ultimately, we all have to think for ourselves. We may receive excellent instruction at home, school and church—but there comes a time when we must answer the questions “What do I believe? What do I think?”

Answering such questions requires solitude. No one can think for me, no one can believe for me. Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” We are told to repent and believe, yet only I can repent and only I can believe. We start our spiritual journey with such a singular, personal act, and in one important sense it must continue that way. As I grow, I am surrounded by colleagues, mentors and friends who aid and assist me. Yet for all their aid, I must think, I must pray, I must love. It is true that I am part of a community and blessed for it and united to it. Yet I am also alone before God.

Email This Article

---

Print This Article

---

Share This Article

Send us your comments

As Jesus makes clear, I must love God with my mind as well as my heart, and with all my mind at that. This is a radical notion: one way I love God is with my mind—with all my mind. How do I grow in understanding, wisdom and knowledge? In community and alone before God, coram deo. I understand more of God, His creation and myself in community and conversation, but also alone in contemplation, prayer, and study. I need time for consecrated thinking, for the kind of study that Sertillanges called “a prayer to the truth.”

In our modern world, it is increasingly difficult to find time to be alone for thought, study and prayer. Solitude can be scary, and dedicated thought is hard work. Pascal recognized this over 300 years ago when he wrote, “the whole calamity of man comes from one single thing, that he cannot keep quiet in a room.” No doubt, this problem continues to be a calamity, exacerbated by a multitude of new distractions that keep us infused constantly with media, entertainment, and data.

Are you called to pursue the life of the mind—a Christian intellectual? Then you must find like-minded friends, but you also must spend regular time alone. You must also prepare for battles particular to mind work—battles against laziness, pride, envy, and irritation (intellectual vices). You must seek to cultivate a love for truth, humility, constancy, patience, and perseverance (intellectual virtues). And knowing that the world will assault you whether it likes or dislikes you, you must reject its friendship and learn how to “work far from the world” by going to another place – in your mind.

The best way to travel there is to travel alone.

For additional insight to this topic, get the book, Habits of the Mind, by James Sire, from our online store. Or read the article, “Minding the Store,” by T. M. Moore.

For more on what it means to pursue a life as a Christian intellectual, we recommend James Sire’s book Habits of the Mind: The Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (InterVarsity Press) and A. G. Sertillanges’ classic title, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods (CUA Press).