To deeply spiritual people like Thomas Merton, living a life of faith meant to live in the world without being of the world.  It was only in solitude, says the Dalai Lama, that inner freedom can grow.

The great philosophers and prophets all went to a lonely place to pray and think, to grow in self-awareness. I’ve learned in my own spiritual work that self-awareness is not about having no faults, it is about seeing my faults and telling facing the truth about them.

I have a bunch of lonely places, I find one every day and spend some time there.

It is easy enough to see other human beings as being enemies and threats to be kept at distance, it is much harder to see other people as friends with whom we share the joys and sorrows of being human.

People are sometimes skeptical of me, as I often was of other people,  they jeer and sneer at all this his chatter about doing good, they assume there must be something else going on, some way I am benefitting from this work.

I do benefit from this work, but perhaps not in the way they think. I’ve been given the greatest gift, a much more precious gift than money, I am understanding and accepting who I am, the good and the bad. And there is plenty of bad. I never lie to myself any more.

For the first time in my life, I have no secrets, there is nothing to hide, nothing has not been seen or shared  or acknowledged. The highest compliment I am ever paid is to be told my writing is honest. I have worked at that.

Being honest can be a lonely thing, there are a lot of people who don’t like it. The wonder of it is, I don’t have to be Thomas Merton or Mother Teresa to do good and feel good. Nobody needs to like me, and I don’t need to be liked. That is a kind of precious freedom for me.

In solitude, I can find my heart and listen to it, in solitude I can pull the mask off, and face the truth about myself. One day, in solitude, I will learn to love myself, and that will be a profoundly important day for me. I known now that I can only love others insofar as I can love myself, one does not work without the other. Being angry is not useful.

It was in solitude that I discovered that worth is not the same as meaning and usefulness.

In solitude, I am free to grow old freely without being distracted by worth or success or wealth. I have lost much of my dependence on the world – mother, father, children, savings, status, bosses – and I can form a community of meaning in which there are no secrets or guile or ambitions to defend.

At last, a community I can join, and a community that will have me.

In this community, I can laugh at myself and the sometimes ludicrous trial life is. Today the temperature was above freezing for the first time, and I went out in search of my Lonely Place. It was out behind the barn with the donkeys and the sheep.

Do not be afraid, I told myself,  I am accepted.