If I want to be spiritual, then let me first of all live my life. Those who are not grateful, wrote Thomas Merton, soon will complain of everything.

If I can’t be alone, then I can’t know or understand myself, and no one can know or understand me. If I can’t be in silence, then I can’t know the meaning of contemplation. I will never be able to think.

If I can’t find sanctuary and relief from words, and news, and hate and fear and argument, then I will lead a hollow life, my head filled with distractions.

In the woods, we often walk in silence, the dogs waiting for one or the other if we fall behind. We hold hands, listen to the sounds of the forest, feel the life force of the trees. It is a sacred place for us, a sanctuary, but I know one doesn’t have to go to the woods to find sanctuary. I find it in a chair in the living room at dusk, out in the pasture with the donkeys, up in my bedroom in the middle of the night. If I want to be spiritual, I must first of all live my life and learn to be alone with myself.