Today I'm simply adding onto yesterday's piece from Thomas Merton.
The mind that is the prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and a supernatural desire. For how can I receive the seeds of freedom if I am in love with slavery and how can I cherish the desire of God if I am filled with another and an opposite desire. God cannot plant His liberty in me because I am a prisoner and I do not even desire to be free. I love my captivity and I imprison myself in the desire for the things that I hate, and I Have hardened my heart against true love. I must learn therefore to let go of the familiar and usual and consent to what is new and unknown to me. I must learn to "leave myself" in order to find myself by yielding to the love of God. If I were looking for God, every event and every moment would sow, in my will, grains of His life that would spring up one day in a tremendous harvest.
This can almost sound like we must do the searching for God. If that is how we read it, it can become a life-long prison...for we do not find God. The opposite is the case. Our God finds us and abides with us and will not let us go. Now...let us start with that simple truth. As that is the case - God so loves the world - we need only open our eyes and find the reminders everywhere. And yet, we can be so turned-into-ourselves that we will not leave ourselves for even a moment. We would rather spend our lives trying to make something of ourselves - even if we are simply manufacturing a facade - than to turn and embrace who we are in the eyes of our God who liberates and sets us free to experience the depth of the life God has created for us. So we are invited to "look around" and notice those seeds that God plants throughout our lives that come to blossom into a fullness of life that none of us is able to build for ourselves.
Connection: Sometimes we have such a high regard for what we think we are able to do and be that we do not simply stop and be open to God's touch and welcome into God's Reign.
When you are abiding with us, O God, we often forget that you are so near. We look for other ways to flourish within our lives. But when your ever-present Reign is visible to us, we flourish by simply being in your presence and taking in the wonder and liberty that you already have set before us for life. We praise you, O God. Amen.
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