After IV
BONUS: Bridget Gee & Holy Aloneness

Musical Interlude

Interview

Jon Steele  0:09  
So you talked about pilgrimage just a little bit. But there's one. There's one more kind of phrase that underscores the title of your book. And that's holy aloneness. Yeah. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you mean by Holy aloneness?

Bridget Gee  0:21  
Yeah. It's just my term for solitude. You know, and just making this distinction between alone and loneliness that yes, actually, I think there's something really fundamental about us as humans to be alone, regularly, because that should be the most holy place where we exist without the eyes of others in the room we exist. Like, fully embodied just as who God made us to be and that you're not actually alone and alone place God's with you, your Creator, and that it should be a holy experience where you've experienced that grace and the full love, like your full value is in that room if nobody else is in the room. Right. And so, anyway, I just I it's been part of my own journey of figuring out why have I been so frustrated, being alone in general. And then also I saw that bleed into like, not wanting to be alone with God in certain times of my most of my book is my post college life. So yeah, like, kind of finally having a little extra time to for my own personal spiritual formation. And I found myself getting really anxious when I would spend time alone like kind of like Silent retreats and things like that. And it's because I wasn't comfortable with me. You know, I had a lot of shame and guilt that wasn't from God, you know, and luckily again, the only place that that can really be dealt with and healed is with God alone. So that's, that's my idea of holy aloneness. And then the other thing I'll say too, is that I think, you know, we come into the world alone, and we leave alone, but you're again, you're with God, he sparks you into life. And then he also invites you into the eternal and no one else can come with you for that. So I'm like, Well, clearly we need to kind of recreate that regularly in our daily lives.

Jon Steele  2:26  
Yes. And I know that there's a there's a moment in in your book, even as you're telling a story. There's probably multiple moments, but I'm thinking of one in particular, where you've just entered sort of this, this group. I don't know if it's actually considered like a group therapy session. But this kind of this group place for healing and self discovery, and you know that and then this one night, you're like, I'm going home I need I need just nobody else to be there. Except like just my roommates and I just need space and due to a whole series of events, that wasn't possible. And so they sit but they actually find like, Okay, we're gonna get a hotel room for you. And you sort of like juxtapose these things of like in this place, that I felt this very intense loneliness, actually, what I needed was to be alone with God, and that that was sort of the healing balm for the place that you found yourself in that moment. I think that that is such a fascinating, like, I'll use the word again juxtaposition of ideas of like loneliness and aloneness, that they are not that that one does not negate the other that one can actually bring healing to the other in really powerful ways.

Bridget Gee  3:33  
Yes. Which is why I think I just threw "holy" in front of that, you know, holy aloneness. Yes. I have a lot of aloneness that's pretty unholy, you know, and some of that's just scrolling on Tik Tok for hours. It's just feels like wow, I wasted some time.

Podcast Outro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai