Move In Day



It's move in day.  David and I are starting to put our "stuff" into our 5th wheel which is parked in our daughter's sideyard.  We've been living in her spare bedroom since October so now we're feeling like we are taking up an extravagant amount of space.  And I've brought the wise guys over.  I took them out of their box and placed them in front of the kitchen window to ease them into their new digs.  So far they haven't said anything.  Can't tell if they are mad or in shock.  Plus I haven't quite figured out how to break the news that they missed the Feast of the Epiphany.  But they are the wise men.  They probably already know that.  Which explains the silence.

So I'll leave you with a quote from their Thomas Merton book - the only reading material they've had in their box for the last 3 months:


"When I am liberated by silence,
when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life,
but in the living of it,
I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively, no distraction.
My whole life becomes a prayer.
My whole silence is full of prayer.
The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer."

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, p.103

From 2008...

 

"The Advent mystery

is the beginning

of the end
of all in us

that is not yet

Christ."

- Thomas Merton

 

photo of Icon in Thomas Merton's hermitage

taken by Thomas Merton

God's work

"Fickleness and indecision are signs of self-love. If you can never make up your mind what God wills for you, but are always veering from one opinion to another … from one method to another, it may be an indication that you are trying to get around God’s will and do your own with a quiet conscience. So keep still, and let God do some work."

Thomas Merton

photo is by Jane Manzer

11th Day of Christmas

It's the 11th day of Christmas and frankly I'm beginning to feel like this dead christmas tree. Are we just so over this whole Christmas season or what? I arrived at work at just before noon today and I swear it was beginning to get dark. Really.

I am very aware of the darkness this winter here in the Northwest. And frankly, if "11 pipers piping" came dancing through my door at this very moment I'd probably shoot them. All of them.

Fortunately I don't have to depend on my emotional state for joy. Emotions pass by like clouds. I know that I will feel the warmth of the sun again. (Of course, that might take quite awhile.) So I leave you with my last Christmas focused quote of this season. It's a great one by Thomas Merton.

"Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. " Thomas Merton

photo from here

where love is found

"My chief care should not be to find
pleasure or success,
health, or life or money or rest,
or even things like virtue or wisdom ---
still less their opposites pain, failure,
sickness, death.
But in all that happens my one desire
and my one joy should be to know:
Here is the thing that God has willed for me.
And in this, God's love is found."

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

how does an apple ripen?

"God is like the air we breathe.
Perhaps that is why the deeper
we grow in the prayerful awareness
of the Divine presence in our lives,
the less we actually say with words
and the more we simply

breathe and enjoy it.
How does an apple ripen?
It just sits in the sun."

Thomas Merton

Merton & Mystery

The Advent mystery
is the beginning
of the end
of all in us
that is not yet Christ.

- Thomas Merton

Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death. His writings (over 60 books) have had a profound influence on millions, including myself. This Trappist monk embodied simplicity in all areas of his life and his focus on peace and social justice has had a profound impact on the world. This icon is from here where you can find a couple of his poems on Advent.

To Be....A Tree?

"A tree glorifies God by being a tree."
Thomas Merton

so what am i called to be? as i looked at the branches of this tree i was intrigued with the many directions the branches took over the years and frankly it's not that pretty or even symmetrical.
did they know where they were going when they sprouted? was there a blueprint or genetic code for this tree to follow?

i think back over the different turns i've taken in my own life and at times don't see any rhyme or reason to them...and yet....i'm still moving forward - toward that elusive call of God....

"Roberta glorifies God by being Roberta"

and you? who are you called to be?
put your name in the quote and tell me what you see?