
#1061.2



One of the main reasons wealth makes people unhappy is that it gives them too much control over what they experience. They try to translate their own fantasies into reality instead of tasting what reality itself has to offer.
– Philip Slater

Photo by David McBee on Pexels.com

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
– Mary Oliver
Oh Lord, it’s time, it’s time. It was a great summer.
Lay your shadow now on the sundials,
and on the open fields let the winds go!
Give the tardy fruits the command to fill;
give them two more Mediterranean days,
drive them on into their greatness, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house by now will not build.
Whoever is alone now, will remain alone,
will wait up, read, write long letters,
and walk along sidewalks under large trees,
not going home, as the leaves fall and blow away.
(translated by Robert Bly)
(Photo: Little Sebago Lake, Maine – December 2016)
Willows never forget how it feels
to be young.
Do you remember where you came from?
Gravel remembers.
Even the upper end of the river
believes in the ocean.
Exactly at midnight
yesterday sighs away.
What I believe is,
all animals have one soul.
Over the land they love
they crisscross forever.

Didn’t I say, “Don’t go there; I am your friend.
In this mirage of existence, I am the fountain of life.”
Even if your anger takes you
a hundred thousand years away,
in the end you will return, for I am your goal.
Didn’t I say, “Don’t be content with earthly forms;
I am the designer of the intimate chamber of your contentment.”
Didn’t I say, “I am the sea, and you are a single fish;
don’t strand yourself on dry land; I am your clear sea.”
Didn’t I say, “Don’t get caught
in the trap like a helpless bird;
I am the power of flight – your feet and your wings.”
Didn’t I say, “They will waylay you and make you cold;
I am the fire and your warm desire.”
Didn’t I say, “They will implant their qualities in you
until you forget that the best qualities are here.”
Didn’t I say, “You do not know from what direction
your affairs are put in order.”
I am the Creator beyond directions.
If light is in your heart, find your way home.
If you are of God, know your Benefactor.

The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and of fear. “You will not fear the terror of the night.” And so I go on trying to walk on the waters of the breakdown. Worse than ever before and better than ever before. It is always painful and reassuring when he who I am not is visibly destroyed by the hand of God in order that the simplicity in the depths of me, which is God’s image, may be set free to serve God in peace. Sometimes in the midst of all this I am tremendously happy, and I have never in my life begun to be so grateful for God’s mercy.
– Thomas Merton, Journal entry, October 22, 1952
(photo: Monastery of Christ in The Desert, NM – September 2018)
From Everything is it’s own reward by Paul Madonna
