For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Do not fear, I will help you.” – Isaiah 41:13
faith
melting ice
IN BUDDHISM, knowledge is regarded as an obstacle to understanding, like a block of ice that obstructs water from flowing. It is said that if we take one thing to be the truth and cling to it, even if truth itself comes in person and knocks at our door, we won’t open it. For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them. – thich nhat hanh
dragons breathing flame
from: Life Doesn’t Frighten Me – Maya Angelou
illustration: Jean-Michel Basquiat
lost sheep
Jesus said to his disciples:
“What is your opinion?
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?”
Matthew 18:12
(Photo: Greene, Maine – January 2019)
One prays to pray
…it becomes very important to remember that the quality of one’s night depends on the thoughts of the day, on the sanity of the day, I bring there all the sins of the day into the light and darkness of truth to be adored without disguise – then I want to fly back to the disguises.
Tonight it is cold again and, as I came up in the dark, a few small snowflakes were flying in the beam of a flashlight. The end of an oak log was still burning with small flames in the fireplace. Came up with candles, and sugar for coffee, and a jar to urinate in so that I won’t have to go out in the snow in the middle of the night. What greater comforts could a man want?
– Thomas Merton, journal entry – 12/5/64
a new history
When world religions become mature, we will have a new history, no longer based on competition, rivalry, cultures or warfare, but on people who are actually transformed. These people will change the world, as Mary did, almost precisely because they know it is not they who are doing the changing. They will know they do not need to change other people, just themselves, God takes it from there.
– Richard Rohr
(photo: Fiesole, Italy – July 2002)
sitting cross-legged in the sky
The venerable Dabba rose from his seat, saluted the Exalted One with his right side, rose into the air and, sitting cross-legged in the sky, attained the sphere of heat, and rising from it passed finally away.
– Udana 8.9
Moving Forward – Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)
The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can’t reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.
(photo: Chama River, NM – September 2018)
Pushing a wheelbarrow
There’s a wonderful story set in medieval times in which a man sees a laborer walking by with a wheelbarrow and asks what he is doing. “Can’t you see I’m pushing a wheelbarrow,” the labor replies. Another man comes by doing the same thing and he, too, is asked, “What are you doing?” He replies, “Can’t you see? i’m perform the work of God. I’m building Chartres Cathedral.”
– Robert A. Johnson, from Living Your Unlived Life
the judgement that begins at the house of God
The policies of people contain within themselves the judgement and doom of God upon their society, and when the Church identifies its policies with theirs, it too is judged with them – for it has in this been unfaithful and is not truly “the Church.” The power of “the Church” (who is not “the Church” if it is rich and powerful) contains the judgement that “begins at the house of God.”
– Thomas Merton – journal entry, November 30, 1964
Photo by Harry Smith on Pexels.com
Edge of Atlantic 