The year is 2020. The year is also 2073. The year is also 1373. Our Anchoress sits in solitude in her living crypt. She is there now. She will be there then. She was there then and there again before she was even born.
What would it be to take yourself away from the world? Not grudgingly, nor with dread of fear or loneliness. Not at the behest of a panicked State or for the sake of others but for the sake of
your own soul.
It is the later half of the fourteenth century. A woman has chosen to be entombed alive in a chamber within a church. She will be fed and watered and her general well-being and safety is assured, but she will not leave her self imposed solitude again. She is a cypher; her name is not certain, nor are most details of her life. She seems to reside apart from time. The words she wrote in life; translated and re-translated, compiled and re-compiled seem to call to us through time.
It is a call of love.
As time goes on and we find ourselves increasingly distracted by the trappings the physical world it is useful to ask- Why? Why do we need these things? Can they ever sustain us? Is there another way?
What would our medieval Anchoress say from her living crypt? For her the physical world was shown to be so small a thing it was no great wonder it could not sustain our spirits for long. Of course this was at a time when life was hard and short but also rich with meaning. For better or worse people’s purpose was certain and many did not have the freedom or inclination to imagine otherwise.
Today we are invited to choose our own path and find or create our own meaning. Though we have come a long way many feel unhappier than ever. With many paths to choose from we may find ourselves paralysed by uncertainty and meaning is often harder to find than one might think; and so we desperately cling to life and all its trappings and are outraged at the thought of losing them, when in truth- it is all taken from us in the end.
How do we reconcile ourselves to losing the physical world when we seem more attached to it than ever? Are we doomed to seek lasting comfort in that which cannot sustain us? Could we sit in solitude for one day, let alone a lifetime?