Solitude. It’s what Jesus sought after he went to the wilderness after being baptized in the River Jordan. It was what shaped the spiritual lives of the desert mothers and fathers and drew people to them. It’s often where God is able to meet us, where we encounter the love that we cannot earn, but receive through our returning and rest, quietness and trust.

Parallel rows of tobacco stretched to the edge of my sightline, their giant sagging from the in-tense heat of the day. In front of me were two circles of chairs nestled between two double-wide trailers. . We grabbed plates of food and took our seats in the circles. The thirteen young folks who gave a week of their summer to travel to North Carolina on a Mission Trip interspersed with the mi-grant farmworkers who had invited us into their home.