I attend a church in which the pastor recommends that our process of growing closer to God can benefit from times of solitude, and he tells about a hideaway in the desert , which some nice parishoners lend him.

Okay. I'm pleased he's gets to do that.

But imagine a single mom or dad with no nice friends offering a desert retreat. What's this person to do if his or her mind or emotions or art could use a healthy jolt of solitude?

I've been pondering this thorny question for a few days and here are some thoughts on the matter.

At least part of the refreshment we get from solitude comes from silence. And those of us who are verbal creatures are going to talk to somebody, to spill our frustrations, or wrestle with ideas, or seek answers, or put words to our excitement or wonder. If we've chosen solitude, we'll talk to somebody, maybe to God or maybe to ourselves, maybe to our pet iguana. And talks like these can be the most honest, outrageous, and creative.

If they get too crazy, we can always chicken out and find some person to talk to.

In the novel I'm writing, one of my favorite scenes involves a parrot. It's a version of a factual gathering I read about. I used it because it serves to develop some characters and because it's funny, even though, in the kind of novels I write, those reasons alone are not enough to thoroughly justify a lengthy scene.

Still I chose to include it, and a month or so afterward, while continuing to research, I learned in a book about politics in LA during the 1920s that a fellow named Parrot served as the mouthpiece for one of the story's potential bad guys.

Because I'm not always awake to the obvious, I didn't catch on right away. But later, while jotting notes, I saw the connect. I laughed and shouted "Yes." And in the scene I'll probably finish this afternoon, Tom Hickey will realize that the reason the leader of the gathering brought a parrot was to clue someone to the possible involvement of Parrot in the crime.

Tom didn't see that connection at first because, like me, he's not always awake.

I could deliberate about whether the parrot and Parrot connection is a result of coincidence or something otherworldly, but I'll pass on that and instead point out that such connections are occasions for joy and delight, and the willingness to accept them and use them may be part of what we mean when we call somebody gifted.

Something happened this morning that alerted me to a writer's need for peace of mind. Ever since I felt called to write, I've dreamed of a retreat, a trailer in the desert, a mountain cabin.

But over the years, I've come to see that a retreat doesn't insure peace of mind, only the opportunity for solitude, which is perhaps as valuable as peace of mind, but not the same.

Fabre d'Olivet, in The Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man, contended that: "Only in the heat of battle did the ancient Celts, besieged on all sides by demons, find a sort of repose."

I guess I've met a lot of the ancient Celts' descendants. Maybe I attract them. Or they attract me. Or they're everywhere.

What happened this morning was neither unusual nor particularly tragic. Yet it soured my spirit, dimmed my hope, and lured demons out of the labyrinth. Then, for hours, while I tried to write, every phrase I put together struck me as verbal slop. And every thought felt like trivia.

I wish I had a point to make, some pertinent or provocative advice. But I'm stumped. Except I'm remembering a time when peace of mind had fled far away, and a book by Thomas Merton helped. It's called No Man Is An Island, Thoughts on Solitude. I'll read it again and report.

Spending all day yesterday on planes gave me plenty of time to reflect. I was on my way home from the Florida Christian Writers Conference, where I had encountered questions about the ethics of writers.

I agree with what John Gardner presented in his book On Moral Fiction, that whether or not we writers aim to be teachers, we are. And what we teach has consequences.

At the conference, student writers, aside from matters of craft and marketing, were presented with strange ideas such as that writing isn’t just about making money, and that we could do well to find contentment in our work, rather than in our bank accounts or egos, and we’ll only find aggravation in comparing our success to others’. Though I’ve been to dozens of conferences and my job was to teach, I also learned, and came away feeling blessed and inspired.

And a new wild idea came to me.

Here goes: the world only has room for a finite number of popular writers. Ergo, the more of us who seek and present the truth and grow to become masters of the craft, the less room will remain for those who would write any piece of nonsense that pays.

Jerry Bumpus, a wonderful friend and teacher, told me long ago that if we get good enough, we’ll break through the competition and succeed. Not that many fine but unsung writers aren’t better than many successful ones. Still, at some point in their growth, if they keep growing, live long enough, and put their work into the world, they’ll get discovered and read.

So:

If enough principled writers dedicate themselves and thereby become good enough to displace the perpetrators of easy answers and other lies, they can transform the world.