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Book of Hours, dusk, Entering the Silence, eyes, grace, hearts, holy expectation, joy, light, love, Peace, reflections, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, trial, truth
This morning I found a quote in Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours that I hope to remember as the day progresses. It is in his Wednesday reflections at dusk, so I thought that if I kept it in my heart and consciousness all day, maybe I could say the same as life unfolds and I arrive at evening. It’s a new way to pay attention to the events of the day, a “holy expectation” perhaps – at least worth a try. Here is what he says:
Today, in a moment of trial, I rediscovered Jesus, or perhaps discovered him for the first time. I came closer than ever to fully realizing how true it is that our relations with Jesus are something utterly beyond the level of imagination and emotion. His eyes, which are the eyes of Truth, are fixed upon my heart. Where his glance falls, there is peace; for the light of His Face, which is the Truth, produces truth wherever it is found. There too is joy: and he says to those he loves, I will fix my eyes upon you. His eyes are always on us everywhere and in all times. No grace comes to us from heaven except He looks upon our hearts. (Entering the Silence)
May our travels through this day be suffused with the joy of seeking Truth and recognizing it when it is found. Safe travels, everyone!
Today Christians celebrate the feast of the Ascension, remembering the day when Christ left the earth after commissioning his apostles to “go into the whole world and tell the good news.” The gospels vary in their descriptions of the event and the book following these accounts, the Acts of the Apostles, opens with its own variation of the fact that “he was lifted up” and disappeared from their sight. It’s one of those events that I think “you had to be there” because it seems like something that has to be seen to be believed. Yet, for over 2,000 years, people the world over have heard and believed and followed the instructions that Jesus gave at that time. That is, perhaps, the best testimony to the truth of what Jesus was all about here on earth – the fact that those he commissioned did what he asked so effectively that the message has endured through all this time.
I don’t often think about the biblical Book of Proverbs but this morning I was reacquainted with how pithy and sensible – and sometimes wry or ironic – they are. Here are a couple from chapter 21 that appear this morning and are worth more than a passing glance.
I know it’s long past time for my annual eye exam and lately I wonder if I need stronger lenses in my glasses. Some mornings, however, I think it’s just a question of “wiping the sleep out” of my eyes, a phrase I remember from childhood. I’m one of the lucky ones who didn’t need to wear glasses until far into middle age and now I bless those whose inventions help me to see, especially each time I do have a check up and see pictures of my eyes in their totality. I marvel also at all the eyes can reveal about what’s going on in the rest of the body – conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure – which reminds me to give thanks that I live in such a marvelous “machine” as my body.