I, the Rock, I the River,
I the Tree
I am yours—
your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces,
you have a piercing need
For this bright morning
dawning for you.
~ Maya Angelou from "On the Pulse of Morning" in ON THE PULSE OF MORNING
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If you are truly called to a solitary lifestyle, eventually celibacy must follow. Solitude invites the presence of God, a presence which so consumes the soul, there is no lover energy available for an intense human commitment to intimacy. The deeper one goes into spiritual solitude, the lighter one travels. But it is not for us to divest ourselves -- at our own willed choosing -- of the things that are necessary for life within society. It is for God to strip us, often painfully, of them at a time when God knows -- if we do not -- that we must go more lightly into this Heart of Love.