Kinship with Nature

The sunset and the beautiful colors of nature warmed my heart this evening. We had a lovely late afternoon with friends and this scene greeted us as we drove back into our neighborhood. These words of Thomas Merton spoke to my heart as well. Considering the wonder and beauty of God’s creation I cannot help but feel the certain kinship that he talked about in his journal entry on November 4, 1964.

In the afternoon, lots of pretty little myrtle warblers were playing and diving for insects in the low pine branches over my head, so close I could almost touch them. I was awed at their loveliness, their quick flight, their hissings and chirpings, the yellow spot on the back revealed in flight, etc. Sense of total kinship with them as if they and I were of the same nature, and as if that nature were nothing but love. And what else but love keeps us all together in being? — Dancing in Waters of Life: The Journals of Thomas Merton (vol V)