Neighbours complaining about someone’s dog making an awful racket. You could hardly blame the poor beast, its owner had died in her bed at least a fortnight before and there hadn’t been much left of the old girl worth eating.

Only a man with nothing to hide could make that kind of racket.

It might behoove us to realize that isolation is the absence of all the senseless clutter, and all the incessant racket that would keep God from having ample room to show up and sufficient silence to be heard. Therefore, isolation may actually be the place where we are least isolated.