Oh, when a soul is hid in Thee
For what adventure can it yearn
Save love and still more love to learn,
And thus to love increasingly,
So deep does love within it burn?
My God, I pray Thee for a love
That years until I see Thy face.
And builds itself a nest above
Within its true abiding place.
Our image of solitude is often negative: withdrawal, isolation, distance from others. But this misrepresents the hermitage which is like a silent,invisible spiritual concourse; a place where many can converge without sinking into a crowd, and become a community of love. Every human heart is a hermitage, if we care to enter and find ourselves there in union with all. In solitude friend, foe, and stranger are equally known in love.