There is great value to be realized in periods of solitude and silence for those whose lives are in and of the world. Although I had gone into solitude for four days every year over the past twenty years, I needed a more sustained period of aloneness to recover the freshness of my spirit and to see that which was not true. "Nowhere to go, nothing to do" — these were the words that informed my days.
If we are designed to be in communion with God, if God is our Lover, then we have to indulge in the things that lovers do. The lover wishes always to be in the loved one's presence, to gaze and behold. The name for this loving regard is contemplation.