Thursday 24 April 2008

I found this piece to be quite interesting...again...from Thomas Merton. This will be a two-part devotion that will continue on Friday.



Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. "I think, therefore I am." This is the declaration of an alienated being, in exile from his own spiritual depths, compelled to seek some comfort in a proof for his own existence(!) based on the observation that he "thinks." If his thought is necessary as a medium through which he arrives at the concept of his existence, then he is in fact only moving further away from his true being. He is reducing himself to a concept. He is making it impossible for himself to experience, directly and immediately, the mystery of his own being.



What about all the "things" that do not think?...and how is it that we arrive at even that kind of pronouncement. To have to think one's self into existence seems a bit limited. In fact is seems to me that such a statement make our being quite small. It lacks the grand domain of wonder in which we are always being introduced to something more than we can label and contain in a statement of proof. In some ways, I want to interject "what do you think...in your thinking?" Then I would like to enter into a discussion of how our thinking shapes just a portion of our being. Often, our thinking limits us so much because we are not able to be open to how the Spirit of God blows around us and through. Thus, we have no way of thinking about how the Spirit moves and creates and delivers and changes the very foundation of who I am. Contemplation seems to allow us to drift beyond categories and pronouncements about formulas of existence. Rather, we find ourselves whipped into the wholeness of creation that is not merely me...but us...and all. That is beyond thinking.



Connection: I like the fact that we are surprised by the fullness of life...without having to know who we are and what we would be in the world. In some ways it means we would do ourselves well to rest within the day trusting that who we are will keep unfolding all around us...and we will be given the opportunity to become new.



Come, Lord of Life, and deliver us from all the ways we attempt to exist on the basis of what we can know and what we can see. Help us to notice the experiences of the day that are able to capture us and then deliver us into a new sense of joy and perspective. Amen.