faith

…then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

Isaiah 58:5-10

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

Photo: Abiquiu, NM – September 2018

The strength of the cold

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

The strength of the cold, the austerity and power of the landscape, redeems the snow colors and delicate shadows from anything of pastel shading. I can think of no art that has rendered with such things adequately – the nineteenth-century realists were so realistic as to be totally unlike what they painted. There is such a thing as too close a resemblance. In a way, nothing resembles reality less than the average photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial, you have to use a sign, which is itself substantial and exists in its own right.
Man is the image of God and not the shadow of God.   – Thomas Merton, Journal entry, February 17, 1958 

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Photo: Portland, Maine – February 5, 2019

And when I saw a holy Grail…

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

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“Sir,” said Perceval, “for five
Full years I haven’t known
Where I was, or believed in God,
Or loved Him. All I have done
Was evil.” “Good friend,” said the hermit,
“Tell me why this happened,
And pray God to have mercy
On your sinful soul.” “Sir,
Once I was at the Fisher King’s
Castle, and I saw – the bleeding lance,
And seeing that drop of blood
On the bright white of its point,
I never asked what or why.
There are no amends I can make.
And when I saw a holy
Grail, I had no idea
For whom it was meant, and said nothing.
And ever since I’ve felt
Such sadness that I wished to die;
I forgot about God and never
Prayed for his grace and mercy
Or did what I should to deserve it.”
“Ah,” said the hermit. “Good friend,
Now you must tell me your name.”
And he answered, “Perceval, sir.”
And hearing this, the hermit
Sighed, for he knew that name,
And said, “Brother, this comes
From a sin of which you know nothing…”
– Perceval, Chretien de Troyes (6365 – 6394)

on Merton’s birthday

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

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But life is a gift I am glad of, and I do not curse the day when I was born. On the contrary, if I had never been born I would never have had friends to love and be loved by, never have made mistakes to learn from, never have seen new countries, and, as for what I may have suffered, it is inconsequential and indeed part of the great good which life has been and will, I hope, continue to be. – Thomas Merton journal entry, January 31, 1960

To say that the world is not worth anything ..

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

“To say that the world is not worth anything, that this life is of no value and to give evil as the proof is absurd, for if these things are worthless what does evil take from us?

Thus the better we are able to conceive of the fullness of joy, the purer and more intense will be our suffering in affliction and our compassion for others. What does suffering take from him who is without joy?

And if we conceive the fullness of joy, suffering is still to joy what hunger is to food.

It is necessary to have had a revelation of reality through joy in order to find reality through suffering. Otherwise life is nothing but a more or less evil dream,” – Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace.