I said to my soul, be still
and wait without hope,
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith,
But the faith and love and hope
are all in the waiting;
Wait without thought,
for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.
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 Those who can be solitary have withdrawn their projections and are innately nonviolent.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.