God’s Love

I sat on an old chair under the skinny cedars, with my feet in the brown, frosty grass, and reflected on the errors of my monastic life. They are many and I am in the midst of them. I have never seen so many mistakes and illusions. It should be enough for me that God loves me. For His love is greater than anything else. It is the beginning and end of all. By it and for it all things were created. Yet, outside His love, I am tempted to erect a cold house of my own devising—a house that is small enough to contain my own self, and that is easier to understand than His incomprehensible love and His providence. November 7, 1952 — A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life—The Journals of Thomas Merton, vol 3

There are some times when a passage from his journals simply speaks to my soul. Yes, it is tempting to build that house away from everything and everyone… at about that time, God’s love washes over me and invites me to lose myself and my ego… only to be wrapped in God’s loving grace and presence. To be still and know…