More of Thomas Merton on Gandhi.
...Gandhi's public life was one of maximum exposure, and he kept it so. For him the public realm was not secular, it was sacred. to be involved in it was then to be involved in the sacred dharma (religion, duty) of the Indian people. Surrender to the demands of that dharma, to the sacred needs of the Harijan (outcastes, untouchables) and of all India, was purely and simply surrender to God and His will, manifested in the midst of the people.
When the public is seen as sacred, all of our movement within our society is a part of the holiness of God's Reign. Religious duty or expression is not merely that in which we participate on a designated day in a designated place with a designated people. All is holy. In a day when there is much talk among religious people about the sacredness of life, it is too often only involved with the unborn fetus. What if we reflected on the sacredness of life so that we viewed all of life as that which needed to be protected? It almost sounds biblical when you think of it. The prisoners set free, the poor and weak and widow and orphan sheltered an given daily bread, the rich sharing of their wealth, the powerful taking care of the weak, the outcast brought home....on and on and on. Holy living becomes the character of life no matter when or where it takes place. No longer are there hot-button issues for religious folk to consider. Now, the care of all is the path of life into which we are each invited to live - holy lives.
Connection: What is so holy about this day? Look up from the screen...it is already calling us forth to live.
O God, you walk among us and you call us all into a relationship with one another as though in our relationships we will experience your Reign and find the way of peace in all things. It is not easy to view the ordinary as holy. We need the vision of your Reign to be the sight we are given today. Amen.
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