There is absolutely no reason for most people to be as busy as they are. You want to earn more money than you need. You want to see more television than you need. You want to read more books than you need to read. You want to see more people. You want to keep in touch with too many friends. You want to travel too much. You can even be busy with looking for the meaning of solitude! . . . . I shall have no time to pray whatsoever unless I radically say that prayer and solitude - being alone with God - is a priority. But my senses aren't saying that to me.
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Solitude is a hard discipline, because we have the luxury of so many stimulations.
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Solitude is listening to the voice who calls you the beloved. It is being alone with the one who says, "You are my beloved, I want to be with you. Don't go running around, don't start to prove to everybody that you're beloved. You are already beloved." That is what God says to us. Solitude is the place where we go in order to hear the truth about ourselves.
- Henry Nouwen, Beloved, pp. 11-13
