As a young man just 25 years old, the reality that my father was dying gave me the strength to find silence again. I spent uncounted afternoons by his side talking and listening to pure sound, not noise. He told me to be my own man. He helped me recognize the noise so I could stop listening to it. His dying pushed it away and created a space where silence could bloom and thrive. And in that silence, perhaps for the first time since I was five, I heard the voice of my spirit. It told me what I value. It showed me my weaknesses, illuminated my strengths, and gave me the clarity to decide for myself how I ought to live.
I believe the noise of our world is killing people, stifling spirits, and limiting the potential of humanity ... I believe there is a person inside all of us that needs to be heard.
If you are truly called to a solitary lifestyle, eventually celibacy must follow. Solitude invites the presence of God, a presence which so consumes the soul, there is no lover energy available for an intense human commitment to intimacy. The deeper one goes into spiritual solitude, the lighter one travels. But it is not for us to divest ourselves -- at our own willed choosing -- of the things that are necessary for life within society. It is for God to strip us, often painfully, of them at a time when God knows -- if we do not -- that we must go more lightly into this Heart of Love.