Weather

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creation, storm, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

We’ve been having some rather virulent storms lately. The most astounding of them all was three nights ago when the lightning was like a cosmic light switch that someone kept turning on and off with no time to count the seconds between the lightning and the peals of thunder. (Do you understand what I’m saying? Did you learn that practice in your youth to determine how far away the storm was from you?) We were indeed in the eye of the storm and it kept repeating for over an hour! And the rain over the last few days has been torrential as well, causing streams where there were none and frustrating those whose job it is to keep the grass low to avoid ticks.

I rarely admit that I love storms…not the disastrous ones that cause havoc to the environment but the ones that just make us bow in wonder at the power that is not ours but rather belongs to the natural world. And I love to walk in the rain. Over the past weekend there was a moment when I stepped out into the early morning dripping with leftover rain and heard in my head Thomas Merton’s ode to the morning, encapsulated in my favorite sentence that seems to sing:

The most wonderful moment of the day is that when creation in its innocence asks permission to “be” once again, as it did on the first morning that ever was. (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p.131) Amen…

The Wholeness of Holiness

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collective effort, COVID19, holiness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

As we seem to begin an emergence from the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic here is, perhaps, for some of us, a new view of what holiness means. Think on it:

Christian holiness can no longer be considered a matter purely of individual and isolated acts of virtue. It must also be be seen as a part of a great collective effort for spiritual and cultural renewal in society, to produce conditions in which all can work and enjoy the just fruits of their labor in peace. (Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness, p. 121)

Why Resist?

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God, grace, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

My body can hardly sit in this chair because it is 9:20 AM and I have yet not settled on a thought worthy of being written. I keep trying to fit thoughts into a lesson from Thomas Merton. He sounds like I feel on this cloudy but still morning and it makes me smile that a great writer/theologian could find himself in the same state as someone like me. He says this:

My mind is scattered among things, not because of my work, but because I am not detached and I do not attend first of all to God. On the other hand, I do not attend to Him because I am so absorbed in all these objects and events. I have to wait on his grace. But how stubborn and slow my nature is. And how I keep confusing myself and complicating things for myself by useless twisting and turning. What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation. (Entering the Silence, p. 199)

So I guess I’ve found my place for the day, after all!

Holy Silence

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Holy Week, humility, Peace, silence, simplicity of love, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

As we move into this week that we call “Holy” I have no words of my own so I search Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours for a message leading to silence. I feel that is the way to go in this week as much as possible, giving God the chance to speak. Here is Merton’s prayer:

Keep me, above all things, from sin. But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart in the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love for You alone. (p. 55)

The Force of Compassion

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brave, compassion, heartfelt, Meister Eckhart, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, virtue

Here’s a little news item that bears repeating, I think. Sister Andre, a member of the Daughters of Charity in Toulon, France, is celebrating her birthday today. She’s 117 years old, the oldest European and the second oldest person in the world. (The oldest is also a woman, Kane Tanaka, who is 118.) Sister Andre will have a birthday feast of foie gras, capon fillet with porcini mushrooms and baked Alaska, washed down with a small glass of port wine (a daily “tonic”). Asked what she would say to young people, Sister Andre said, “Be brave and show compassion.” Good advice and something I have espoused for years. As a matter of fact, long ago I saved and framed a calendar page with the work of artist Mary Southard, a Sister of St. Joseph, because in addition to Mary’s beautiful art work it offers two quotes. I see it every day.

The first of the quotes is from Thomas Merton who speaks of the quality of compassion, saying, “Compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all living beings which are all a part of one another.” The second, from Meister Eckhart, is closer to my heart as it speaks of how we should all be acting. It says, “Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.” I like the quote because while it speaks of a heartfelt virtue that would seem very peaceful in itself, it is very active and can’t be contained, bursting out of us with the force of a love that must be shared.

So as we celebrate Sister Andre today, let us redouble our efforts to be brave in these troubled times in which we’re living and redouble our commitment to compassion for the good of the world.

Everyday Advice

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letting go, love, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

On Friday during the day, Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours suggests the following, which seems like a Friday-kind of thought, appropriate for the Lenten season but not only then. It seems like something we could take to heart for any day or hour, but only if we’re open to something of a challenge. Here’s what he said:

Let go of all that seems to suggest getting somewhere, being someone, having a name and a voice, following a policy and directing people in “my” ways. What matters is to love. (p.171)

In this time leading up to our celebration of the Incarnation, when Jesus came to be like us in order for us to become like Him, can you see any lesson in this advice?

Merton’s Prayer

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desire to please, road ahead, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude, trust in God

This prayer of Thomas Merton has been a staple for many people over the years. It has popped up several times now in my mail and as an advertisement for a Spirituality & Practice Workshop. I am tempted to sign up for the course as I am a fan of “all things Merton,” but perhaps this prayer is all I need. It certainly speaks to this moment of time in our world. Won’t you pray it with me today…and perhaps for each of the remaining days of this tumultuous year that we’re experiencing.

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. (Thoughts in Solitude)

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)

The Roots of Mercy

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Cynthia Bourgeault, Helen Luke, mercy, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

In her book, Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault speaks of the quality of mercy, drawing on the work of Helen Luke and Thomas Merton. This commentary shifted for me the meaning of the virtue that in my early life bore the impression of pity, as in “Lord, have mercy on us!” while beating our breasts.

For Luke, in her book Old Age, her understanding of mercy was broadened by a trip to the American Heritage Dictionary (!) where she found, as Cynthia explains, that “the word ‘mercy’ derives from the ancient Etruscan word merc; the words “commerce” and “merchant” share the same root. And so at heart, mercy means some kind of exchange or transaction. It is a connection word.” Luke goes on to connect the word to “the French merci, a grateful response and kindness of heart, and finally to compassion and forgiveness, including all our shades of darkness, whereby we are able to open ourselves to the Mercy.”

It is Thomas Merton, however, whose treatment of the word has stayed with me and remains a linchpin of how I should engage and treat people in all circumstances. In his essay “The Good Samaritan,” Merton refers to the original Semitic translation, which means “a fierce, bonding love – as between committed lovers. It is not about pity, but about passion.” He continues, “Chesed [mercy] is fidelity, it is also strength. It is ultimate and unfailing because it is the power that binds one person to another, in a covenant of hearts.”

Today we honor St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, the visionary who is particularly responsible for the feast of the Divine Mercy. We would do well to spend some time reflecting on the definitions above as they relate to the feast of today and give thanks to the God who is “rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…” (EPH 2:4)

Good Morning!

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link, presence, present, silence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you wake up hardly able to move with everything you need to accomplish by day’s end? How to decide where to start? And then you grab a cup of coffee and sit down to figure it out…and suddenly the sun blasts out from behind the clouds .and you look down at the book you have just pulled off your shelf and Thomas Merton says:

Here I am. In me the world is present, and you are present. I am a link in a chain of light and presence. You have made me a kind of center but a center that is nowhere. And yet also I am “here.” To be here with the silence of Sonship in my heart is to be a center in which all things converge upon you. That is surely enough for the time being. (A Book of Hours, p.47-48)

And so it is.