Morning Glory

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awareness, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, dawn, praise, psalm 66, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

The deck at the back of our house is wet. I am grateful for the rain that gentled the heat of yesterday while we slept. Everything is still quiet – except the birds who must know that today is the beginning of a new week, a new moment for songs of praise. I feel like the sole witness to creation’s great, miraculous beauty as I read the refrain from Psalm 66: Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!

Some moments later, even the birds are quieting down in awe as Thomas Merton steps in from long ago with his own psalm at dawn just perfect for this holy sabbath day.

Today, Father, this blue sky lauds you. The delicate green and orange flowers of the tulip poplar tree praise you. The distant blue hills praise you, together with the sweet-smelling air that is full of brilliant light. The bickering flycatchers praise you with the lowing cattle and the quails that whistle over there. I too, Father, praise you with all these my brothers, and they give voice to my own heart and to my own silence. We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices. You have made us together, you have made us one and many, you have placed me here in the midst as witness, as awareness, and as joy.

(Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 177-178, excerpted in Thomas Merton – A Book of Hours edited by Kathleen Deignan)

Friends of God

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awareness, child, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, content, faith, friend, friendship, gratitude, humble, knowledge, light, poverty, praise, prayer plant, presence, simplicity, spirit, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

Sometimes when life feels very complicated I like to find some simplicity somewhere. This morning, since light had already arrived at this task before I did, I looked up and saw that my prayer plant had found a way to untangle herself from the tight configuration her leaves had been living in since I transplanted her a few weeks ago. She seemed happy to spread her arms in praise. That moment was enough to call me to do the same.

The feeling was deepened when I opened to the words of Thomas Merton who offered me the following message from his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

You ask of me nothing else than to be content that I am your Child and your Friend, simply to accept your friendship because it is your friendship. This friendship is Spirit. You have called me to be repeatedly born in the Spirit, repeatedly born in light, in knowledge, in unknowing, in faith, in awareness, in gratitude, in poverty, in presence, and in praise.

Such a wide-ranging invitation offered to all who consent simply to accept humble friendship with God!

 

 

 

 

 

Friendship

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Book of Hours, child, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, disruption, faith, friend, friendships, gratitude, knowledge, light, praise, presence, school, spirit, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

When I was teaching school, this used to be an important day for me as it still is for many folks. The Wednesday after Labor Day sees our young people returning to school after their long summer vacation. It isn’t the same everywhere in our country. In some places, school has been in session for weeks but in those places dismissal for the summer also happens earlier, primarily because of the heat, I think. Right now it seems that some young people will not return to their schools at all this year; the schools are no longer habitable because of Hurricane Harvey. What will become of them, I wonder, for many reasons. Some will likely be home-schooled. Some may be shuttled to other locations. That happened in my own town after a flood in 2011. A Catholic parish school that had been closed and used for other parish functions was given back its identity for two years while a new school was built. Will the youth of Texas be so lucky as to find schooling together with their familiars?

That kind of disruption must be difficult for students. The youngest children are probably more adaptable because they are still curious and open to all kinds of difference but I think of middle and high school students whose friendships have been forged in similarity and safety. Because of my father’s work, I moved to a different state just as my seventh grade school year was about to begin. Luckily I ended up in a small school with only about 40 students in each grade, otherwise I think I might have drowned in the sea of newness and difference.

Even the best of friendships are not easy to maintain. Different career paths, marriage and our mobile society among other factors can affect relationships that may have been long-standing. Recently, however, I met a 69 year old woman from a small town who was speaking of her 67 year friendship with her first playmate. That, to me, is miraculous. I find myself a little envious of such fidelity and steadfast care, for that is what they have. More often now friendships are hard work, and more difficult as we age, perhaps.

I smile as I write that because I read a rather ironic paragraph this morning from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours, quoted from his text, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. It couldn’t have been easy for him to be God’s friend, it seems, until he surrendered to the meaning of such a relationship. He’s speaking to God:

You ask of me nothing else than to be content that I am your Child and your Friend, simply to accept your friendship because it is your friendship. This friendship is Spirit. You have called me to be repeatedly born in the Spirit, repeatedly born in light, in knowledge, in unknowing, in faith, in awareness, in gratitude, in poverty, in presence and in praise.

This may be a day to examine my willingness to surrender to what friendship – both divine and human – calls out from me and to be grateful for those I call by that name.

 

 

 

 

 

Homage to Merton

Tags

Abbey of Gethsemane, agency of Christ, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, East-West understanding, exultation, he pure glory of God in us, lightning, monk, nothingness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Victory, Thomas Merton

On this date in 1968, shocking news from Bangkok, Thailand reported the death of Thomas Merton, who had just presented a paper entitled “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives” to an international gathering of monks. During the afternoon rest period, Merton was electrocuted by a fan with faulty wiring that fell on him as he emerged from a shower. It seemed impossible that this prolific writer, theologian and seeker of justice should have left the planet after only 53 years, just on the verge of a meaningful opening of East-West understanding in the world of spirituality. This year groups and individuals the world over have celebrated the centennial of his birth. Today, in remembering his death, we celebrate his great contribution to spiritual conversation that is, in many ways, just beginning to comprehend the depth of what he was saying a half-century ago. The first of the quotes below is part of one of Merton’s most familiar texts and the other seems appropriate for an Advent day. I join with so many others today to give thanks for the bright light that was Thomas Merton, somewhat hidden in the cloister of the Abbey of Gethsemane, Kentucky during his life and now shining in the world at large and in eternity.

In the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.  (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 158, excerpted)

Make ready for the Face that speaks like lightning, uttering the new name of your exultation deep in the vitals of your soul. Make ready for the Christ, Whose smile, like lightning, sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in your paper flesh, like dynamite. (“The Victory,” Collected Poems, 171-172)