Called or not called, God will be there. -Engraved in stone over the front door of Carl Jung

From "After the Darkest Hour: How Suffering Begins the Journey to Wisdom ," by Kathleen A Brehony, Ph.D:

Chronic illness is often accompanied by pain and suffering that does not stop even with the best medications. We must look within to find power to cope, to bend without breaking.

Silence and solitude are compelling instruments of transformation granting us moments of perfect opportunity to look deeply inside. When we're suffering, silence offers a cool oasis from the burning pain of the moment and imparts the opportunity for a full experience of our deepest feelings as our inner wisdom points the way to healing. Yet, many people are afraid of silence and scared to be alone. Many of us are not accustomed to experiencing the depth of feelings that emerge in solitary, silent, meditative moments. Still others of us have never cul¬tivated ways or places or times to look inside in moments of silent soli¬tude, even though they're always as close as our next breath. That's very unfortunate. Throughout time, silence has always been known to be golden; a direct pathway to God and the bigger picture.

Meister Eckhart understood the importance of solitude and quiet as being essential to knowing the Self and experiencing authentic spirituality. "There is nothing in all creation so like God as stillness," he wrote. Psalm 46:11 advises, "Be still, and know that I am God." Native Amer¬ican philosophies tell us, "Listen or thy tongue will keep you deaf.”... Christian mystic Saint Teresa of Avila gently reminds us that the world of Spirit is ever-present, and that no long-distance travels are necessary to feel the immediacy of our divine connection: "We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to find a place where we can be alone-and look upon Him present within us."

Practices of meditation and prayer change our ways of seeing things and, in spite of the darkness that surrounds us while we suffer, they guide us to a brilliant, inner light.