Meaning and Authenticity

From Thomas Merton: When psalms surpise me with their music And antiphons turn to rum The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul And from the center of my cellar, Lo ve, louder than thunder, Opens a heaven of naked air. I send Love's name into the world with wings And songs grow up around me like a jungle. Choirs of all creatures sing the tunes Your Spirit played in Eden. Zebras and antelopes and birds of paradise Shine on the face of the abyss And I am drunk with the great wilderness of the sixth day of Genesis. Antiphon 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. As we worship God this morning, may the bottom drop out of our souls, and may we, too, send Love's name into all the world!

Wednesday Dawn, from Thomas Merton's Book of Hours: Our souls rise up from our earth like Jacob waking from his dream and exclaiming: "Truly God is in this place and I knew it not"! God becomes the only reality, in Whom all other reality takes its proper place--and falls into insignificance. May our Loving God be our only reality this day....

For this early Sunday morning, Thomas Merton: There is in all things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessnss, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity; a silence that is a 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 am awakened, I am born again at the voice of this my Sister, sent to me from the depths of the divine fecundity. May we all be awakened to Wisdom this day.

Oh, Monday, Monday. The Mamas and the Papas plaintive singing is part of my reality this morning. Do I really have to go back to work? This helps. From Thomas Merton: The forms and individual characters of living and growing things, of inanimate beings, of animals and flowers and all nature, constitute their holiness in the sight of God. Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of God's wisdom and God's reality in them. The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this day in the field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by God's own creative wisdom, and it declares the glory of God. Such a lovely combining of the inner and the outer in this Psalm to remind me that ALL creation should declare the glory of God. And I am part of that creation. And so is my church. And so is my vocation. May my soul today not forget....

Jan has tagged me for a great Book Meme! Total number of books? Whoa! Not sure. When I married D, he said that together we had about 4,000 books, most of which are his, but I'm sure that if not half, then 1,500 or more were mine. Last book read? Hmmm, well, I'm currently re-reading a biography of Heinz Kohut for my lecture this month, but maybe that doesn't really count. I'm carrying A Book of Hours, Thomas Merton, around in my backpack with me and am reading it in spurts. I devoured Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil recently. Also Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church. Last book bought ? That would be the Thomas Merton book. Five meaningful books ? Off the top of my head, The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck, which started me on the path of self-awareness. I am forever grateful to Mr. Peck! Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. I was actually, truly transformed by reading this book. I loved myself more. Amazing. Christ in a Pluralistic Age by John Cobb. As

Love this from the Thomas Merton Book of Hours-- "We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in God and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation."

For all of us who are preaching this morning, and for all of us who are not: With my hair almost on end and the eyes of the soul wide open I am present, without knowing it at all, in this unspeakable Paradise, and I behold this secret, this wide open secret which is there for everyone, free, and no one pays any attention. O paradise of simplicity, self-awareness--and self-forgetfulness--liberty, peace. This closing prayer from Thomas Merton A Book of Hours made me smile this morning. May I, at least, pay attention. :-)

When I came across this psalm this morning from "Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours," tears filled my eyes. In the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. Reading this, I was reminded that no matter the circumstances of our lives, at the center of who w