Resilience: In silence and hope shall your strength be

Lots of folks are saying this trip is going to be a lesson in resilience. Being alone in the wilderness for such a long period can break a person. So, why do it?

Thomas Merton wrote about pursuing silence in solitude:

What would prompt a modern people to do such a thing? When we live superficially, when we are always outside ourselves, never quite with ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions by conflicting plans and projects, we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives…. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence. It helps us to concentrate on a purpose that corresponds to the deeper needs of our own being and what we are called to do.

The best first step towards change is to listen. A wilderness expedition seems a good place to hear a response.