We have made an idol of togetherness…. Togetherness in this sense is the watchword of our times. It seems that it is more and more a substitute for God. In the great collective huddle, we are desolate, lonely, and frightened. Our shoulders touch, but our hearts cry out for understanding without which there can be for the individual no life, and certainly no meaning. The Great Cause, even the cause of survival itself, is not enough. There must be found ever creative ways that can ventilate the private soul without floating it away, that can confirm and affirm the integrity of the person in the midst of the collective necessity of existence. It is the insistence of mysticism as it shall be defined in this lecture that there is within reach of every [person] not only a defense against the Grand Invasion but also the energy for transforming it into community. It says that a [person] can seek deliberately to explore the inner region and resources of [their] own life. [They] can grow in the experiences of solitariness, companioned by the minds and spirits of those who as “pilgrims of the lonely road” have left logs of their journey. [They] can become at home within by locating in [their] own spirit the trysting place where [they] and God may meet. Here it is that life may become private, personal, without at the same time becoming self-centered; here the little purposes that cloy may be absorbed in the big purpose that structures and redefines; here the individual comes to [themself], the wanderer comes home, and the private life is saved for deliberate involvement.

–Howard Thurman in Pendle Hill Pamphlet 115: Mysticism and the Experience of Love