My faith was tested. I was my own guinea pig; the years in isolation due to illness were passed in prayer and study of all kinds–like Job on his dunghill. I was to learn that health is also having FAITH in the higher aspects of human nature. Health is having hope, because without hope there is no life. Health is love of our selves and others. In truth, love is the life blood of faith and hope and together they create a healthy body, mind, and spirit: the Trinity of our being.
~ from THE VOICE OF SILENCE by Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo
When I retreat at home, I am alone in silence. And I am also with thousands of others around the world, sitting quietly, all of us bonded together in our effort, our solitude, and our prayers. Each moment of the day, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are sitting in strong concentration, deepening awareness not only for themselves but for everyone. We are opening our hearts, alone but all-one, joining others throughout the centuries in timeless realms. We dwell in unknown realities singing a song of the revelation of the divine.
~ from SILENCE, SIMPLICITY, AND SOLITUDE by David A. Cooper
A person must learn to be alone in solitude, to listen in one's heart to the wordless speech of the Spirit, and to discover the truth bout oneself and God. Then their word to others will be a word of power, because it is a word of silence.
Prayerful awareness can lead us into solitude, which is where God calls us. It is from within this solitude we encounter the indwelling God. We could say that by fully and fearlessly embracing our solitude before God that we are enabled to become fully and fearlessly present to others. If our being in God is real, we may become as a mountainside shelter within which others may feel encouraged to continue their own dialogue with the Holy One. Thus, as we are in God, we become a place for others to be in God.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but great are those who in the midst of the crowd keep with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
For a full day and two nights I have been alone. I lay on the beach under the stars at night alone.... Beauty of earth and sear and air meant more to me. I was in harmony it, melted into the universe, lost in it, as one is lost in a canticle of praise, swelling from an unknown crowd in a cathedral. I felt closer to humankind, too, even in my solitude. For it is not physical solitude that separate us from others, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation.
~ from A GIFT FROM THE SEA by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
I grew up in this forest and I knew These giant trees when they were nothing more than Than slender saplings swaying in the wind; Sought solitude, delighted in the lore Of nature, who became my teacher first; Walked down trails where sun and shadow meet, Through silence softly tucked about the days; Traced the twists and turns of every creek. Stepping lightly through the after-glow, Amid the falling flakes of silver white, Belonging to the moment and the mood, Another little creature of the night, With quickened breath, ears attuned, who stood ... Sensing God within this winter wood!
Only solitude can provide the depth for universal friendship. Those who can be solitary have withdrawn their projections and are innately nonviolent. They have broken with the crowd, and their communities do not become rival crowds in their turn. Solitude gives us the transformational insight that all things are held together in the boundless, open community of God. To be friends with one another is only seeing what we are in God together. This insight is the criterion of all genuine holiness.
Holiness demands courage. The courage born of holiness.
Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. She goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.
Pleasure is one thing; wisdom is another. The first leads to sorrow, though pleasant at the time. The latter, though at first unpleasant, leads to lasting joy.
Wisdom has no limitations and embraces the profound as well as the simple. She can be found in the huts of the poor and in the palaces, in workshops and in lecture halls. She deals with the most profound speculations on the creation of the world and the very nature of God and even with the inability of men and women to come up with adequate answers to these great mysteries. Wisdom tells us to be attentive to her and to incline our ears to her understanding.
