Here is what I would consider a wonderful look at the priesthood of all believers without using that language. What a gift of vision by Merton.
The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God's will in my work. In this way I become God's instrument. God works through me. When I act as God's instrument my labor cannot become an obstacle to contemplation, even though it may temporarily so occupy my mind that I cannot engage in it while I am actually doing my job. Yet my work itself will purify and pacify my mind and dispose me for contemplation.
What is the will of God? That we are faithful to our God. So in all things I am called to live within the domain of God's will. There will be no work...no daily activity...no relationship that falls outside of "God's will." Therefore, if I'm hearing Merton correctly, the life of contemplation is at hand no matter where we are or what we are doing. If that is the case, then those who are wondering about how they can be more "spiritual" or grow in their "spirituality" need only live boldly within God's promise of new life in the middle of all that is ordinary from day to day. For within this context, we become truly contemplative...we begin to honor and hold dear and respect and see the connection between all things no matter where we are or with whom we are spending our time. We could say that there is no excuse as to why we cannot enter into the realm of contemplation and enjoy the fullness of God's Spirit. Unless of course, we have turned contemplation into an exercise that is not a part of life itself. Then, I might want to ask, what is it that we are contemplating.
Connection: Be present and alert and ready to enter the journey of this day and to see God' will breaking into our lives and shaping us.
Spirit of God, you do not wait for the appropriate time to grasp us and make us new. For even now the day is beginning to provide us with life we may not have considered and life we will find to be quite amazing. Encourage our engagement in all the life that will be presented to us today. Amen.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Thursday 8 May 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Wednesday 7 May 2008
Merton on the will of God.
How am I to know the will of God? Even where there is no other more explicit claim on my obedience, such as a legitimate command, the very nature of each situation usually bears written into itself some indication of God's will. For whatever is demanded by truth, by justice , by mercy, or by love must surely be taken to be willed by God. To consent to His will is, then, to consent to be true, or speak truth, or at least to seek it. To obey Him is to respond to his will expressed in the need of another person, or at least to respect the rights of others.
I was touched again to hear that obedience to God is to take note and be moved to act for the welfare of the needs of others. With that in mind, there is no disconnect between any of us. We are a part of this grand vision of God's will that knits together all things. Too often, though, we do not or will not or cannot see the connection and therefore we are stuck with ourselves and miss out on the field of love that sways when the breath of God's promises bring truth and justice and peace and mercy right into the very depths of who we are.
Connection: When and where will you not how God's love has become a part of this day in the middle of our interactions with others?
Grant us the patience to listen again and look again and then, in that time, see your love present as the source of our life together, O God. It is as we learn to breathe that we learn to see more than that which we so often move by so quickly. Hold our lives and inspire our patience and vision. Amen.
How am I to know the will of God? Even where there is no other more explicit claim on my obedience, such as a legitimate command, the very nature of each situation usually bears written into itself some indication of God's will. For whatever is demanded by truth, by justice , by mercy, or by love must surely be taken to be willed by God. To consent to His will is, then, to consent to be true, or speak truth, or at least to seek it. To obey Him is to respond to his will expressed in the need of another person, or at least to respect the rights of others.
I was touched again to hear that obedience to God is to take note and be moved to act for the welfare of the needs of others. With that in mind, there is no disconnect between any of us. We are a part of this grand vision of God's will that knits together all things. Too often, though, we do not or will not or cannot see the connection and therefore we are stuck with ourselves and miss out on the field of love that sways when the breath of God's promises bring truth and justice and peace and mercy right into the very depths of who we are.
Connection: When and where will you not how God's love has become a part of this day in the middle of our interactions with others?
Grant us the patience to listen again and look again and then, in that time, see your love present as the source of our life together, O God. It is as we learn to breathe that we learn to see more than that which we so often move by so quickly. Hold our lives and inspire our patience and vision. Amen.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Tuesday 6 May 2008
More of the seeds of God's love - Thomas Merton.
If these seeds would take root in my liberty, and if His will would grow from my freedom, I would become the love that He is, and my harvest would be His glory and my own joy.
There is nothing of coercion or pressure in this love of God. It is available and will not be held back because it is always the power that brings all things together into one united and diverse and robust creation. In the presence of such love the ways of our lives seem to change into that which loves us. It is as though we love even when there is no one watch...but rather because that is what we find fulfilling even when we could choose to be and act another way. When a community moves and sways to the beat of this love, this love is magnified and becomes quite extraordinary. That is why the community of saints in the world does greater things than the Lord of the Church. For we are many acting and living within the love of the one whose love is boundless and creates more love in, with, and under all who are free to walk in the way of God's love.
Connection: We live within the wonder of God's love that is poised to come to life among us and in us. Therefore we anticipate the day with great expectation.
Your glory shines among us, O God, and when it shines, the light of your shines within the lives of those who are raised up by you for life that is eternally reflective of your love. Amen.
If these seeds would take root in my liberty, and if His will would grow from my freedom, I would become the love that He is, and my harvest would be His glory and my own joy.
There is nothing of coercion or pressure in this love of God. It is available and will not be held back because it is always the power that brings all things together into one united and diverse and robust creation. In the presence of such love the ways of our lives seem to change into that which loves us. It is as though we love even when there is no one watch...but rather because that is what we find fulfilling even when we could choose to be and act another way. When a community moves and sways to the beat of this love, this love is magnified and becomes quite extraordinary. That is why the community of saints in the world does greater things than the Lord of the Church. For we are many acting and living within the love of the one whose love is boundless and creates more love in, with, and under all who are free to walk in the way of God's love.
Connection: We live within the wonder of God's love that is poised to come to life among us and in us. Therefore we anticipate the day with great expectation.
Your glory shines among us, O God, and when it shines, the light of your shines within the lives of those who are raised up by you for life that is eternally reflective of your love. Amen.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Monday 5 May 2008
Merton give space to note when these "seeds" of contemplation come to us so that we may become aware of more than our superficial lives.
...it is God's love that warms me in the sun and God's love that sends the cold rain. It is God's love that feeds me in the bread I eat and God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick, and the hot summer when I labor and my clothes are full of sweat: but it is God who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the wood. His love spreads the shade of the sycamore over my head and sends the water-boy along the edge of the wheat field with a bucket from the spring, while the laborers are resting and the mules stand under the trees.
It is God's love that speaks to me in the birds and streams; but also behind the clamor of the city God speaks to me in His judgements, and all these things are seeds to me from His will.
It is not always a a pleasant breeze. God is present in the breezes that also make our sweating more intense. But if we are looking for only one kind of presence, we miss so much of the expansiveness of God's love. Our God is available and handing us the vision of God's Reign even as we endure the ordinary that is often not the best of the way we would have things come to us. The grand and mighty intervention of the love of our God may be that simple bucket of water...in other words...the simple life that is offered to us by and through others when the only thing happening in our lives is the everyday routine that we think offers no inspiration...and yet it is revealing God's love at hand.
Connection: When will you be surprised by the presence of God's love today?
Lord God, when you touch us with your love, we often do not feel that touch. Most often, it is because we do not anticipate how close and present your love is to us. Help to open our eyes to the many and various ways we are exposed to your love...and yet do not see. Amen.
...it is God's love that warms me in the sun and God's love that sends the cold rain. It is God's love that feeds me in the bread I eat and God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick, and the hot summer when I labor and my clothes are full of sweat: but it is God who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the wood. His love spreads the shade of the sycamore over my head and sends the water-boy along the edge of the wheat field with a bucket from the spring, while the laborers are resting and the mules stand under the trees.
It is God's love that speaks to me in the birds and streams; but also behind the clamor of the city God speaks to me in His judgements, and all these things are seeds to me from His will.
It is not always a a pleasant breeze. God is present in the breezes that also make our sweating more intense. But if we are looking for only one kind of presence, we miss so much of the expansiveness of God's love. Our God is available and handing us the vision of God's Reign even as we endure the ordinary that is often not the best of the way we would have things come to us. The grand and mighty intervention of the love of our God may be that simple bucket of water...in other words...the simple life that is offered to us by and through others when the only thing happening in our lives is the everyday routine that we think offers no inspiration...and yet it is revealing God's love at hand.
Connection: When will you be surprised by the presence of God's love today?
Lord God, when you touch us with your love, we often do not feel that touch. Most often, it is because we do not anticipate how close and present your love is to us. Help to open our eyes to the many and various ways we are exposed to your love...and yet do not see. Amen.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Friday 2 May 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Thursday 1 May 2008
More 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.
It is no easy to let ourselves wander into that which is not already under our control. By control I simply mean we've been there or at least know how to pretend that we have been there. By control I simply mean the ideas and experiences we have fenced in as being what is real and good and right. When this takes place within us, we also fence in our own lives. We become as trapped or "put away" as anything we would seek to put under our control. We become gods of our own making and we make ourselves without the freedom that God gives to us all. In other words, we reject God -even as we play the games of religious words and rituals- in order to establish and keep and protect what we want for ourselves. Thus, we become slaves. We are so tied to caring for what we have put together as our limited self, we cannot even entertain the life of vision and hope our God holds open for us.
Connection: Maybe we should make sure that we wander a bit today. When wandering...wonder...when wondering...be free.
Lord of Life, it takes so long for us to let go of that we think we have created and must sustain. It can be so long that we never turn to see the life you offer to us. We need a nudge...a pull...a call, to free us from ourselves. Free us, O God. Amen.
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.
It is no easy to let ourselves wander into that which is not already under our control. By control I simply mean we've been there or at least know how to pretend that we have been there. By control I simply mean the ideas and experiences we have fenced in as being what is real and good and right. When this takes place within us, we also fence in our own lives. We become as trapped or "put away" as anything we would seek to put under our control. We become gods of our own making and we make ourselves without the freedom that God gives to us all. In other words, we reject God -even as we play the games of religious words and rituals- in order to establish and keep and protect what we want for ourselves. Thus, we become slaves. We are so tied to caring for what we have put together as our limited self, we cannot even entertain the life of vision and hope our God holds open for us.
Connection: Maybe we should make sure that we wander a bit today. When wandering...wonder...when wondering...be free.
Lord of Life, it takes so long for us to let go of that we think we have created and must sustain. It can be so long that we never turn to see the life you offer to us. We need a nudge...a pull...a call, to free us from ourselves. Free us, O God. Amen.
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