There is a sense in which people must count the cost of honest prayer. The answer to prayer may be a demand for something we would much rather avoid doing. If it is truly the Divine Lover who is encountered, we may be very uncomfortable. Idols of our own making have a way of making us feel comfortable and at ease with things as they are. The God of justice/love is the One who calls us out of complacency so that we share divine discontent with a world which worships death. We are met and challenged to live as people of the light in a world that loves the darkness... This fear of what God may open our eyes to see may, in fact, lie behind our own resistance to God, our fear of prayer and silence.
Each age has its own tasks. For most of us now, our monasteries have no walls except the silence our meditation gathers to the center of our lives, and this is enough—it is more than enough. Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things; amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.