Until I have been lured into the desert, until I have been brought in solitude to the very ground of my being, where I am beyond the grip of my surface self with all its plans and distractions, I am not able to hear the divine whisper. It is then I discover at the heart of things that my solitariness is transcended and that I am not alone.
A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.