Merton writes about the rights of others and the needs of others - I like it.
For the right of another person is the expression of God's love and God's will. In demanding that I respect the rights of another God is not merely asking me to conform to some abstract, arbitrary law: God is enabling me to share, as God's child, in God's own care for my brother and sister. No person who ignores the rights and needs of others can hope to walk in the light of contemplation, because his/her way has turned aside from truth, from compassion and therefore from God.
We are a people tied to one another and in that tie we are tied to our God who is continually calling us into the fullness of our being - as God's beloved. When we attempt to walk away from others as though we can live our own lives secure and protected from others, we are really stepping away from the very source of our God domain - the community. I hear echos from the story of Genesis chapter one when humanity is give the gift of be caretakers of all things. As we care for one another -stranger...enemy...neighbor...foreigner- we are as God would be: compassionate and caring without condition. We we consider those around us and their needs, we really do enter into the domain of contemplation that begins to pull us into more of ourselves.
Connection: So...here we are...ready to be the unfolding love and grace of God....today.
Let your Spirit, be our Spirit, O God, and when that is our life, the world and all of us will be transformed. Amen.
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