To move toward the desert where interior prayer and interior transformation can take place means a willingness to go into the desert, to learn to shut the door, and to move into the necessary solitude which prayer and the deeper levels of worship require.
The oaks of 1910 were now ten years old and taller than either of us. It was such an impressive sight that I was struck dumb, and, as he never spoke, we spent the whole day in silence walking through his forest. When I reminded myself that all this was the work of the hand and soul of this one man, with no mechanical help, it seemed to me that after all we might be as effective as God in tasks other than destruction.