Saturday,
March 31, 2012
What to read for
today.
Chapter 33:Journey Through the Wilderness
Questions for your
personal reflection.
Was there anything in today’s chapter that you “held and
savored”?
Sharing with others:
What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today?
This was a hard chapter for me to understand. I thought that Merton was trying to
show that there are many routes to contemplation, including sweeping the floor
or doing laundry. We don’t have to
do formal mediation. We can read books, look at sacred objects, or be in the
presence of nature. What matters
is our state of mind, “a habitual, comforting, obscure and mysterious awareness
of God, present and acting in all the events of life”. To me this is what the
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn calls mindfulness. It is available to everyone.
Posted by Genevieve
So much of what I've read in Merton's book has been interesting, but I often felt that it was for the student monks, but not for me. However today the sentence which includes the words "a mysterious awarenwss of God" brought me thoughts that I could use in my life. Was very struck by his quoting the saying God "writes straight on crooked lines", for this is a Portuguese proverb which has comforted me for the greater part of my life: "Deus escreve direito por linbas tortas". I must have read the same book as did Merton!
ReplyDeleteReply from Second Thoughts
DeleteThanks. I have often shared your thought that Merton was writing for student monks. And today he said something that should go in his introduction because it's a helpful way to approach this and other of his works. He said, "When you find some paragraph or sentence that interests you, stop reading and turn it over in your mind and absorb it." That sounds like what you did.
Posted by Second Thoughts
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was helpful, as was yesterday's chapter. The idea of being led through a wilderness applies to many things in life, not just contemplation. And like the person above says this isn't just for student monks.
There are so many things in life to be restless and anxious about even though it's silly to fret. If one can be serene and rest in faith (whatever that means to you), one sees that there is something "present and acting in all the events of our lives". As Merton wrote in chapter 3, "Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul."
I will try to remember and apply that.
I found this chapter hopeful. It spoke to me about how to arrive at the destination "Contemplation". I learned it would not be an necessarily easy journey but if I perservered It was attainable. It was almost an instruction manual about letting go and not giving up. I was particularly struck by his comment about not forcing your thoughts on a particular path. As if!Taking up something and rolling it around in your mind was a great image for me.
ReplyDeletedon't worry about making mistakes- you (I) will make them. Keep on keeping on
how I get to that meditative state he says is far less important than what I do when I arrive.
post by william