The Venerable Thomas Merton

Thank the Lord for smart people who think well about matters of life and faith.  Merton is a treasure trove of good thoughts.  

"To Know the Cross"

Thomas Merton 

The Christian must not only accept suffering: he must make it holy.  Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.  

Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration.  True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude.  We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial. 

Suffering is consecrated to God by faith -- not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God.  Some of us believe in the power and the value of suffering.  But such a belief is an illusion.  Suffering has no power and no value of its own [...]

Only the sufferings of Christ are valuable in the sight of God, who hates evil, and to him they are valuable chiefly as a sign.  The death of Jesus on the cross has an infinite meaning and value not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God.  The cross of Christ says nothing of the power of suffering or of death. It speaks only of the power of him who overcame both suffering and death by rising from the grave [...]

Suffering therefore, can only be consecrated to God by one who believes that Jesus is not dead. And it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of meaning.  

Luna

The first sentence I strung together as a kid was, "Pitty moo-un",  pointing a chubby finger out of my stroller to the night sky.   Pretty moon.  Whether my toddler self recognized a pre-existent love, or whether that began the affair I do not know, but it seems I have loved the moon ever since. 

 "Faithful witness in the sky," the psalmist writes in Ps. 89.  How often the sight of even a slivered moon has served as a reminder of goodness!   As a freshman walking across campus alone on a Thursday night in late September, shuffling feet through leaves and grass and watching the sidewalk, it was the moon that drew my eyes upward, piercing through loneliness and speaking, "You.  You there.  I know exactly where you are." 

A full moon, rising in unobstructed silver glory in the western sky above Davis Lake is something to behold.  On the rocks there I liked to watch the moon, sometimes two hours at a time, letting it soothe my spirit in its coolness.  The purity of light orders clamoring thoughts, separates important from not, divides marrow from bone.  

Last night I slept better than I have in a few weeks in a pool of moonlight that poured in from the bedroom window, opening my eyes every once in a while to see clouds billow in and out, sometimes pewter in color, sometimes alight, and sometimes so dark one would never guess the light hid behind them.   And occasionally the brightness would muscle out the clouds letting that unabashed, lovely gaze fall to earth, "You. You there.  I know exactly where you are."

Science and folk lore have disagreed over whether the moon is made of rock or of cheese but I say its an unblinking Eye, casting its sight over this shrouded planet, faithfully witnessing to its own glory.  

Good Dog

Sometimes my dog takes me for walks.  I follow her insatiable nose where it leads and clean up the fun stuff she leaves behind.  We go on these walks because she dances and snorts whenever I get close to my sneakers and generally looks so stifled and sad that I cannot leave her inside any longer.  

Then some nights, I take her for walks.  Nights where she is already curled up tighter than cinnamon bun (and about the same color), with snout indiscernible from tail.   No matter how sleepily she may look at me, though, she obliges my desire to stroll through the dark neighborhood.  Good dog.  

Last night happened to be such a night. The moon called, you see.  When it is clear enough in Seattle to see the moon, one must not waste time.  Leash on, shoes on, puffy jacket on, and soon, the attendant peace of boots going crunch crunch over frosted grass, and the dear dog nose going whiff whiff through every bush.  

The rhythm of walking tends to take the edge off of unruly thoughts, giving a cadence to their disorder.  Step.  Step.  Step.  stop and sniff.  Step. Step. Step.  Moon above, cold air, keep moving.  I didn't expect midnight revelations, only the mild refreshment of the winter evening, so I was surprised at 195th and 3rd to sense things had gotten real quiet inside me.  

I am so tired, I said.  

I know, You said.  

I hated Greek, I said, wincing.  

But something else whispered alongside the wince. 

I could go, I said, though I'm not sure why.  

All the while we walked, little dog on the left leading the way through the dark.  Stopped to shit.  Kept going.  

Well then, I said to the still night and to my still self, Princeton in the fall is beautiful.  

Back at home while the steam from a cup of steeping tea drifted into my face, and the little red dog had tucked her head into her side, I opened my hands and released  greek verbs and exegetical papers and research conferences to the Spirit's keeping.  It will be the work of the Spirit, after all, if I make it back to school again, so I will go on walks during the in-between time.  Step. Step. Step.  

And though the last lights off the black West went

     Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.  

Gerard Manley Hopkins