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*Brian Wilcox. 'Stepping into a World of Light'.
First, as to intimacy, this is not about how much time you share with others. One may be with others much and share little intimacy with them, or share little time with others and live intimately with them. Indeed, too much time among others may dilute intimacy for some persons. Some persons need more time apart than time with, some persons need more time with than apart.
My way is I shift some from more time with to more time apart, back and forth. I enjoy being with others, yet time alone in solitude is priority to me and has been for the last several decades, possibly all my life. This likely arises both from natural disposition and divine summons. Even as a child, I spent much time alone, partly for reasons of living apart from others in the rural area where I was raised. I did not have friends close by, we had no close neighbors. As a teen, I was already deeply into religious life, and this meant being unlike so many of my classmates. I was very much alone, even amid them. One reason I moved into the community home I live in from living alone, was I was assured time alone was honored here. I would be able to interact with the community when I wished, how much I wished. So, this has been a place that works well for me.
And intimacy with others does not mean that intimacy will be reciprocated; you can be close to another who is not close to you, even may resist being close to you. In this, your heart is close to the heart of the other, and this makes intimacy possible. All intimacy is a matter of the heart.
A premise of all my writing is that intimacy with anyone is intimacy with the divine Presence. There are not two intimacies. So, when I am among others or alone apart, essentially I am with them, even as with God. Intimacy assumes many expressions, but intimacy is one. I, at times, even call the Divine with the word "Intimacy." We are each expressions of the Love seeking to love us each.
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I was reminded of the power and mystery of intimacy just last night while reading in my bed. In the midst of reading, suddenly the environment around and within the body thinned out, became what many call a "thin place." I knew this as an uprising of some of the most profound closeness with anyone I had known in this life. How I knew it was with this person, I cannot say. The person has never even been in the home where I live, and I only see her infrequently, at most for a few minutes. I saw the vision of the face of this person. I decided not to return to reading but to abide in this intimacy for a time. I wondered, "Is she aware of this also?" This closeness lingers today when I recall it, even as I write of it now.
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