In authentic contemplation, we discover within ourselves the hidden living and loving Companion Presence. We need to go to the solitude and silence of the wilderness, where God calls us by name, to a deeper place. This is where we are filled with the peace that the world cannot give and which the world cannot take from us. We discover there that we have and always shall be in God. It is the spacious place of the soul. To live there is finally to be at home. God is also at home there, and when we return, we have discovered simplicity.
Notice that the more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are the victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego -- your need to possess and control -- and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous -- large-souled.