We naturally use our faith to strengthen our relationship with God, to focus our thoughts on what is good, to help us love our neighbor. I ask a lot from my faith. To me, it's not simply a place of comfort; it is a reference point from which I take the indecipherable events of my world and place them in a context that is holy, sacred, and dynamic. It won't make the world go away, but it does have the power to shape one into a person of deep sensitivity and true passion.
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.