We each have a “vocation to solitude” ‘Let yourself belong to silence, let silence soak into your bones, nourish you, be the air you breathe. A commitment to silence is at the heart of nurturing a contemplative practice and creative life. In silence you will discover the Great Artist from whom you emerged; you will sense the pulse of creative energy through your being so that you slowly grow to recognize that creating is your birth- right, and that you join your work with this ultimate work. But the call is nourished by the silence. We continue to return to this open space to remember who we are.

–Thomas Merton

(Thanks to Garnette Arledge.)