…it’s a long way out.
(photo: the road to Monastery of Christ in The Desert, New Mexico – Sept. 2018)
acceptance
The foolishness of God
God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are. (1 Cor 1:25-28)
if you behaved badly…
IF YOU BEHAVED badly in the past, if you have been destructive, you can do something about it. By touching the present deeply, you can transform the past. The wounds and injuries of the past are still there—they are within your reach. All you have to do is come back to the present moment, and you will recognize the wounds and injuries that you have caused in the past and those that other people have caused you.
You should be here for these wounds and injuries. You can say to them, “I am here for you,” with your mindful breathing, your deep looking, and your determination not to do the same thing again. Then transformation is possible.
– thich nhat hanh
#1077 – November
The Great You
All of us are much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves. Don’t get caught in “my” story, my hurts, my agenda. It’s too small. It’s not the whole you, not the Great You. It’s not the great river. It’s not where life is really going to happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10-14) or, as it states at the end of the Bible, as a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1-2). Your life is not really about “you.” It is part of a much larger stream called God. The separate self is finally an illusion for those who stay on the journey of prayer.
– Richard Rohr
The Great Reality
Deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. We can find the Great Reality deep down within us. And when we find it, it changes our whole attitude toward life.
– Alcoholics Anonymous
Sooner or later the world must burn
In choir the less I worried about the singing, the more I was possessed by Love. There is a lesson in that about being poor. You have got to be all the time cooperating with Love in this house, and Love sets a fast pace even at the beginning and, if you don’t keep up, you’ll get dropped. And yet, any speed is too slow for Love – and no speed is too fast for you if you will only let Love drag you off your feet – after that you will have to sail the whole way. But our instinct is to get off and start walking…
I want to be poor. I want to be solitary. This business burns me. “My strength is dried up like a potsherd” (Psalm 21:16). I am all dried up with desire and I can only think of one thing – staying in the fire that burns me.
Sooner or later the world must burn, and all things in it – all the books, the cloister together with the brothel, Fra Angelico together with the Lucky Strike ads. Sooner or later it will all be consumed by fire and nobody will be left, for by that time the last man in the universe will have discovered the bomb capable of destroying the universe and will have been unable to resist the temptation to throw the thing and get it over with.
And here I sit writing in a diary.
But Love laughs at the end of the world because Love is the door to eternity, and he who loves is playing on the doorstep of eternity, and before anything can happen, Love will have drawn him over the sill and closed the door, and he won’t bother about the world burning because he will know nothing but Love.
Thomas Merton, journal entry – October 3 & 10, 1948
Photo by Rahul on Pexels.com
#1071
inner peace
This blog doesn’t have all that many followers and that’s fine with me. I was so happy to have received an email yesterday letting me know that “inner peace is now following The Edge of The Atlantic.”
Please know that I am slowing down in hopes that inner peace will soon catch up to me.
Didn’t I say – Rumi
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.
Edge of Atlantic 