To "look with the eyes of love" seems a vague and sentimental recommendation; yet the whole art of spiritual communion is summed in it, and exact and important results flow from this exercise. The attitude which it involves is an attitude of complete humility and of receptiveness, without criticism, without clever analysis of the thing seen... The doors of perception are cleansed, and everything appears as it is. The disfigurating results of hate, rivalry, prejudice vanish away. Into that silent place to which recollection has brought you — new music, new color, new light are poured from the outward world.
When I fail to embrace the solitude of God's peace, I get caught up in the world's downward spiral of violence and turmoil...Solitude plucks us out of the world's frenzy and centers us in nonviolence. Solitude silences the loud voices within us to allow the still, small voice of God to speak. Solitude gives God the time and space to disarm our inner wars and gives us the strength to receive God's gift of peace, and to learn to be at peace with ourselves and those around us.