"The desert is the home of despair. And despair, now, is
everywhere. Let us not think that our interior solitude consists in the
acceptance of defeat. We cannot escape anything by consenting tacitly to
be defeated. Despair is an abyss without bottom. Do not think to close
it by consenting to it and trying to forget you have consented.
This,
then, is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To
trample it down under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair
unceasingly. That war is our wilderness. If we wage it courageously, we
will find Christ at our side. If we cannot face it, we will never find
Him."
from Thomas Merton Thoughts in Solitude, Burns & Oates, Tunbridge Wells, 3rd ed. (1997) 22-23
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