Hi friends--passing along a quote today that was sent to me last week.
....thought you might like it.

Henri Nouwen wrote in Reaching out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

"As hard as it is to believe that the dry desolate desert can yield endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown beauty. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play." (p34)