The experience of solitude is necessary because only in solitude and silence is the living God revealed as the binding source of all that is. The veil is lifted, and we begin to see the wonderful possibilities of life together that surround and inhabit us. This means that, at our worst and darkest moments, we can affirm that we are God's handiwork, that God's image has marked us forever, that the most real thing about us is the Spirit who dwells in every human heart. We may be fundamentally and utterly nothing, we may be creatures marked for death, but we are peculiar beings whose very emptiness has been designed to be inhabited by nothing less than the living God. And it is in the living God that we meet one another. The life of prayer revolves around two poles: solitude and community. God is encountered in both places.
In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where humans may enter the harbor and reclaim their dignity. The sabbath is a designated day -- also a state of mind -- a time of detachment from things, instruments, practical affairs and the hurly-burly of life's struggles. In the sabbath state-of-mind we can seek attachment to the spirit, recapturing the goodness of our essential being.