“Today when I talk about contemplative spirituality, I’m referring to a faith rooted in practices marked by postures of solitude, silence, and stillness, which may seem similar yet are distinct ways of encountering God with our whole presence and person. Solitude, silence, and stillness are the lifesaving corrections to the absurdity we’ve fallen into–the addictions or whatever is out of control in our lives.”

Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017), pp. 170-171.

“To love solitude and to seek it does not mean constantly traveling from one geographical possibility to another. A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary. From that moment, solitude is not potential–it is actual.”

Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958. (pbk ed 1999)), p. 77

“Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair. Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), p. 78.