Humility is indeed a basic spiritual virtue. It comes to us when we do not know how to proceed, when all previous teachings and certainties have been found to be unavailing. When we are in the suffocation darkness of our own hell, we are suddenly confronted by a light of radiance that illuminates our total situation. We at once accept its glow and loving warmth with relief; but as it leads us on to the fuller light, it makes demands on us. It requires nothing less than a complete change of heart, so that we may take up the darkness of the world around us in the light that had so recently lightened our own darkness ... As our depths are illuminated, so we take our place in the light of God. It is then that we know the meaning of love ... and then, it radiates to the entire cosmos as a beam of the love of God. The light of God in this way releases the love that is native to the soul but usually imprisoned in it ... To learn this love, not merely intellectually, but also in experience, is the object of all life.
It was from my experience in alternating work at the Red Cross and forest service that I began to learn the difference between loneliness and solitude. I now believe that loneliness occurs when our lives are somehow missing one-half of a pair of opposites — being and doing. We can be very busy and surrounded by people yet still feel intense loneliness because our lives are dominated by "doing;" there is insufficient time for attentive solitude with our thoughts and feeling. When your life is filled with too much doing, the only cure for loneliness is a strong dose of solitude, a form of solitude that is meditative and open to your inner self.