The Long View

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compassion, Kathleen Deignan, The Hidden Ground of Love, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, tolerance

As we learn that the election we have just concluded was fair and decisive, we realize also that the “new day” is not yet upon us. There will be challenges to what has been determined as “the will of the people” and we need patience and stability to assure a safe transition. I read a brief paragraph this morning from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan that gave me a glimpse of a possible “long view” going forward. It will be my companion for this day as I struggle to wait for a resolution.

Merton writes: I think what I need to learn is an almost infinite tolerance and compassion because negative thought gets nowhere. I am beginning to think that in our time we will correct almost nothing, and get almost nowhere: but if we can just prepare a compassionate and receptive soil for the future, we will have done a great work. I feel at least that this is the turn my own life ought to take. (originally written by Merton in The Hidden Ground of Love, p. 20)

Searching for Words

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circumstances, decisions, Kathleen Deignan, necessity, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

Today feels like a turning toward necessity. How to describe that, I’m really not certain. The meaning feels just below or above the the surface of things so rather than trust my own words, I turn to Thomas Merton because his prose often pushes me deeper or higher. In the “Friday, Day” section of A Book of Hours I find the following:

Wrestling quietly with the circumstances of my life. There is an attitude to be taken, there are decisions to be made. There is a radical refusal demanded of me somewhere and I do not know where it begins and ends and how to approach it.

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and mystical generation.

(Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours. Kathleen Deignan, p.171-172)

Sunshine

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coronavirus, Holy Week, infinite mercy, Jesus, Kathleen Deignan, New Seeds of Contemplation, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

It was 6:37 a.m. this morning when I looked up from reading the updated statistics of the cases and deaths from the Coronavirus and saw the sun just below the top of my backyard mountain looking like a supersize flashlight that God had turned on just for me. Now it’s almost 8:00 and I am still sitting with a heavy heart because of the state of our state (NY)—highest statistics for infections and deaths from the virus—and the state of our nation and the world. There is no good news as we march toward Holy Week to consider what seemed to be the end of the amazing ministry of Jesus, the miracle worker.

There is no possibility of looking directly out my window now, however, because the sun is too bright. I can no longer see the mountain and I notice a stirring inside me that is totally contradictory of all that I have been considering since my morning began. It rises like the words of Thomas Merton as I read a random (?) psalm prayer to obliterate the darkness and get me off my chair to face the day.

Love comes out of God and gathers us to God in order to pour itself back into God through all of us and bring us all back to Him on the tide of His own infinite mercy. So we all become doors and windows through which God shines back into His own house. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 67, quoted by Kathleen Deignan in Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, p.153.)

Unadulterated

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Cynthia Bourgeault, fulfillment, image of God, joy, Kathleen Deignan, love, Peace, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Wisdom Jesus, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton A Book of Hours

In searching for something today to express the heart of our book study conversations yesterday of Cynthia Bourgeault’s magnificent text, The Wisdom Jesus, I found the best answer in Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan (ed.) Much of what Merton says is more a felt sense than a gathering of intellectual content. I can only affirm this morning’s find with a resounding “Thank you!” while listening to the beat of my heart.

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy.

To find love, I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 60-61)

Friday

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Kathleen Deignan, The Sign of Jonas, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

I pick up a long-ignored Book of Hours* now to find a match to the silence all around. The birds have already had their “hour” of waking and presently are busy with the day. The sun is up and shining in silent glory and I sit in gratitude with Thomas Merton’s spirit, imaging him on the grounds of the Abbey of Gethsemani writing the following: Thank God for the hill, the sky, the morning sun, the manna on the ground which every morning renews our lives. (The Sign of Jonas, p. 327)

*Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Deignan

Saturday at Dawn

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action, Book of Hours, Christopher Pramuk, Creator, God, Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom, hope, humility, joy, Kathleen Deignan, purity, reflection, silence, sweetness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wholeness

Although Saturday can be a day to catch up on all sorts of mundane tasks and chores, occasionally I savor the opportunity for a bit of leisurely delving into reflection on something found in one of the many alluring books on my shelves. This morning I returned to Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours, noting that I had not visited with him – or mentioned him here – for quite some time. Rather than quotes from his various texts, Saturday’s entries in Kathleen Deignan’s book of Merton’s writings are all parts of his amazing prose poem, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom).

In a commentary on this text of Merton, Christopher Pramuk, a professor of theology and spirituality at Xavier University, writes the following:

For years I have been haunted by Merton’s prose poem “Hagia Sophia.” The poem seems at once to multiply and silence all questions about God. Rather than succumbing to tired theological categories and preconceptions, it breaks them wide open, making old things new, daring us to imagine and hope again.

See if you agree. (I just quote his beginning here. I believe it is enough for one day.)

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is the fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.

(I recommend reading this slowly and often, aloud if possible, to catch and feel the beauty and meaning.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Real Work

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active work, Christian life, contemplative, create our destiny, great work of mankind, Kathleen Deignan, Labor Day, Love and Living, nature, struggle, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

I’ve often been in conversations where the topic is the naming of this holiday. Some of us think it should be called “Non-labor Day” since mostly all workers who are not absolutely necessary (like hospital emergency room personnel) are usually free of going to work today. With this in mind I turned to Thomas Merton who actually has a fair number of thoughts on the subject of work. I came upon a paragraph in which he looks at work in a different, more elevated way. I thought it a good sharing for today and with it I pray my hopes for a safe and restful, rejuvenating day for everyone, working or not.

(We must forgive the “exclusive language” in the paragraph below since Merton lived when “man” was still understood universally as meaning all of “humankind.”)

All Christian life is meant to be at the same time profoundly contemplative and rich in active work. It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. In doing this, we act as co-workers with God. We take our place in the great work of mankind, since in effect the creation of our own destiny, in God, is impossible in pure isolation. Each one of us works out his own destiny in inseparable union with all those others with whom God has willed us to live. We share with one another the creative work of living in the world. And it is through our struggle with material reality, with nature, that we help one another create at the same time our own destiny and a new world for our descendants.  (Love and Living, p. 159 – quoted in Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Deignan)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Ourselves

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God, identity, inner room, Kathleen Deignan, masks, Matthew, New Seeds of Contemplation, point vierge, praayer, salvation, secret, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

It happened again this morning! I read the gospel passage that instructs us on how to go about praying so as not to be swayed by the desire for approval. (MT 6:1-6, 16-18) It tells us to go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. That reminded me of Thomas Merton’s reference to what he calls the point vierge, that space in us that no one (even we ourselves) can access – only God can. I knew the quote originally found in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander appeared also in Kathleen Deignan’s book Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, so I pulled the book as I did yesterday with Macrina Wiederkehr. Again I found what I didn’t know I was to read. This time the book jacket flap gave it to me. It wasn’t what I was looking for but it certainly was what answered my need for coherence of thought. Merton was talking about vocation, our identity in God, and among other things, he says this:

…we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls “working out our salvation,” is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation.

We do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be. The secret of my full identity is hidden in God. God alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with God and in God, the work will never be done. The way of doing it is a secret I can learn from no one else but God. There is no way of attaining to the secret without faith. But contemplation is the greater and more precious gift, for it enables me to see and understand the work that God wants done. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 32-33, excerpted)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Right Road

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alone, desire to please, God, Kathleen Deignan, Lord, lost, no fear, path, road, the shadow of death, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, trust, your will

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

~ Thomas Merton
(from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan)

The Contemplative Life

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action, cloistered life, contemplative life, creative work, dedicated love, experience, inner discipline, integrity, Kathleen Deignan, personal development, prayer, special dimension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

When I speak of the contemplative life I do not mean the institutional cloistered life, the organized life of prayer. I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development, which are not compatible with a purely external, alienated, busy-busy existence. This does not mean that they are incompatible with action, with creative work, with dedicated love. On the contrary, these all go together.

~ Thomas Merton
(from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan)