All of us are solitaries: we are born alone through the birth canal into the world and time, and we die alone. No one can enter our interior experience, or its continuum with the outer world we call community. Solitude is the human condition, the universal vocation to be human. It is the willingness, with Love indwelling, to go to the heart of pain to find new life and share it with the world even though you may be separated from it physically. It is from this commitment to be focused through the narrow gate of solitude that self-emptying love is outpoured, and the heart of the community, the heart of its pain, is transformed into the heart of joy.
Without the Light, the journey of life is fraught with dangers and no traveler's vision can penetrate the haze of self-centeredness. The ímage of God as Light that suffuses all the universe is one that unítes the divine transcendence and immanence... All of creation is replete with "signs" of God's presence, but they cannot be discerned without the Light.
