O Love-why Can't You Leave Me Alone?

First, The Desert Is The Country Of Madness. Second, It Is The Refuge Of The Devil, Thrown Out Into The "wilderness Of Upper Egypt" To "wander In Dry Places." Thirst Drives Man Mad, And The Devil Himself Is Mad With A Kind Of Thirst For His Own Lost Excellence--lost Because He Has Immured Himself In It And Closed Out Everything Else. So The Man Who Wanders Into The Desert To Be Himself Must Take Care That He Does Not Go Mad And Become The Servant Of The One Who Dwells There In A Sterile Paradise Of Emptiness And Rage.

Contemplation In The Age Of Auschwitz And Dachau, Solovky And Karaganda Is Something Darker And More Fearsome Than Contemplation In The Age Of The Church Fathers. For That Very Reason, The Urge To Seek A Path Of Spiritual Light Can Be A Subtle Temptation To Sin. It Certainly Is Sin If It Means A Frank Rejection Of The Burden Of Our Age, An Escape Into Unreality And Spiritual Illusion, So As Not To Share The Misery Of Other Men.

A Superficial Freedom To Wander Aimlessly Here Or There, To Taste This Or That, To Make A Choice Of Distractions, Is Simply A Sham. It Claims To Be A Freedom Of "choice" When It Has Evaded The Basic Task Of Discovering Who It Is That Chooses.

If We Wait For Some People To Become Agreeable Or Attractive Before We Begin To Love Them, We Will Never Begin. If We Are Content To Give Them A Cold Impersonal 'charity' That Is Merely A Matter Of Obligation, We Will Not Trouble To Understand Them Or To Sympathize With Them At All. And In That Case We Will Not Really Love Them, Because Love Implies An Efficacious Will Not Only To Do Good To Others Exteriorly But Also To Find Some Good In Them To Which We Can Respond."

When I Am Liberated By Silence, When I Am No Longer Involved In The Measurement Of Life, But In The Living Of It, I Can Discover A Form Of Prayer In Which There Is Effectively No Distraction. My Whole Life Becomes A Prayer. My Whole Silence Is Full Of Prayer. The World Of Silence In Which I Am Immersed Contributes To My Prayer.