Reflection
Alone is a state of being. Not loneliness, but aloneness. It is something sought rather than avoided. You can find it in just a moment, a breath: in Central Park, or early morning on the street, sitting on a stoop, or leaning against the window of a bus or subway car, alone in a throng of commuters.. The breaths you take are your own. The experience is becoming rarer than ever. With phones buzzing and beeping like pinball machines, constant inquiries that require constant replies, solitude is an antiquated commodity.
We do need others, just not all the time. The tincture of solitude is worth a thousand conversations. Being alone is socializing with something more than yourself and those like you. It is a way of looking up from the day’s shuffle and talking to the larger world.
Craig Childs
Prayer
To you, O God, silence is praise.
Psalm 65:1
Acrion
Try to take time to be alone and allow yourself to enjoy the quiet and the solitude.
Suggested Reading
In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
Isaiah 30:15
In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
Mark 1:35
At times like these, more than ever do we need the reasons of the heart, which alone can help us understand the mystery which embraces our loneliness.
Pope Francis
What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.
Ellen Burstyn
All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal
It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness.
Maggie Smith
We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly – spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.
Susan L. Taylor
We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.”
Tamim Ansary
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
Anne Frank
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.
Pearl S. Buck