Quote - finding God in the silence and solitude of the desert

January 15, we celebrate the feast day of one of the Desert Fathers, known as Paul of Thebes or Paul of the desert (227- 342).  He fled to the desert in a time of persecution, intending to later come back, but was drawn to the life of a hermit, where he lived out in the silence of desert. 

Paul Shepard, in his book: Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature, has this wonderful quote about those like Paul who found God in the silence and solitude of the desert: 

“To the desert go prophets and hermits; through desert go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.”