Friday,
April 6, 2012 ~ Good Friday
What to read for
today.
Chapter 38:Pure Love
Questions for your
personal reflection.
What sense do you make of this chapter? Does it contribute to your
understanding or experience of “God”, “contemplation” or “the interior life”?
Sharing with others:
What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today?
Merton seemed to roam all over the place, sometimes speaking
with clarity, sometimes doubling back on himself or contradicting what he had
just written. Perhaps he was using
the chapter to clarify his own confused thinking. Or maybe words simply could not capture what he wanted to
convey.
One thing that did ring true was Merton’s observation that
people seem alienated from their inner selves and are “turned, spiritually,
inside out”. In other words, we
confuse the image we want the outer world to see with the person we are really
intended to be. As far as Merton is concerned this is the Fall of Man described
in Genesis. I think that Joni
Mitchell’s Woodstock lyrics convey the same sentiment:
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to
the garden.
Posted by Genevieve
Posted by Second Thoughts
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful chapter filled with truth. Yes, it doubles back on itself and meanders sometimes, but it is the culmination of everything that Merton has been writing about until now: in contemplation there is no Him and me, no God and man, they are melded together and indistinguishable one from the other.
Many parts of this chapter hit home for me such as that it's a mistake to confuse our spiritual, hidden self with our exterior, individualistic self. Such as that there is no abyss or chasm to cross because it's all right here. Or that there is no cause for pride in our gifts or accomplishments because they are as no more "ours" than the air or the sun. And I particularly liked the bit about how stupid it would be to praise the arc of the sky over the country where a man lived just because he once lived there.
And what an ending. "Come let us go into the body of that light..." That's Easter.
So to answer the question posed, this chapter did a beautiful job of tying up any loose ends. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
From Genevieve
DeleteAll thoughts very much worth remembering.
For me, this chapter was about being. Being present, being yourself, being able to recognize the you in others, the others in you.
ReplyDeleteI loved the phrase the next step is not a step. It conveyed to me the essence of connectedness that is necessary in my view to comprehending the divine.
Understanding that in true contemplation there are no borders between yourself and God , that there is only one reality is a gift , one that it seems hard to hold as it gets forgotten regularly. (guilty)
But I was heartened by Merton saying- like Christ, it matters not when you come, just answer the invitation to the table. the feast will always be ready.
post by william
From Genevieve.
DeleteNice. Especially the bit about the table. Also worth remembering.