I am still learning
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via Granny Miller by noreply@blogger.com (Granny Miller) on 12/10/08
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton.
Brother Louis, or Thomas Merton as he was known to the world, died suddenly in Bangkok,Thailand on December 10, 1968 by accidental electrocution.
He was 53 years old.
Thomas Merton lived most of his life in silence and in poverty as a Trappist monk in rural Kentucky.
He farmed with horses, knew sheep, cows, pigs, rabbits and goats.
He lived at times without indoor plumbing or electricity, and chopped more than his share of wood.
He liked beer, jazz and had trouble with his teeth and back.
Thomas Merton was a worldly, literate and sophisticated man who left the world to find himself.
He was a great sinner and I think also a saint.
Even though I'm not Roman Catholic, I have a tremendous devotion to Thomas Merton.
I'll tell you why.
In my mid 40's I experienced a crisis of faith and completely abandoned Christianity and turned to the Eastern religions looking for answers.
I questioned everything in my life and could no longer pray or hear God.
I lived every day in a spiritual desert.
And without going into personal details, I will tell you, Thomas Merton bought me back to Christianity and showed me a place where I could once again pray.
Brother Louis returned me to God.
Thomas Merton's life was filled with intense struggle, doubt, rebellion and questioning.
In Thomas Merton I recognized and found myself.
But more importantly, I also found in him a loving spiritual guide and source of reassurance.
The best maps are sometimes drawn by people who have been the most lost.
Thomas Merton gave me a map I could read.
And I think it is nothing shy of a miracle, that today 40 years after his death, so many still hear his voice and listen to what he has to say.
"We have what we seek. We don't have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give it time it will make itself known to us."
"To hope is to risk frustration. Therefore, make up your mind to risk frustration."
"Take more time, cover less ground."
" The devil makes many disciples by preaching against sin. He convinces them of the great evil of sin, induces a crisis of guilt by which 'God is satisfied', and after that he lets them spend the rest of their lives meditating on the intense sinfulness and evident reprobation of other men."
" Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."
"For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purpose of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not."
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