“Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.”—Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)
| Verse of the day But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. – 2 Peter 3:8 |
| Voice of the day Time is how you spend your love. – Nick Laird, “The Last Saturday in Ulster” |
| Prayer of the day Fill us, O God, with an urgency to love and a slowness to anger. |
Congressman John Lewis died just over a year ago (July 17th, 2020). His powerful legacy lives on as does the vision he shared up until the day of his death. May we continue to hold up the light of nonviolence and get into some good trouble, necessary trouble!
“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. […] Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
~ John Lewis,
‘Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America’
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.
| Verse of the day The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, [God’s] mercies never come to an end. – Lamentations 3:22 |
| Voice of the day There are a thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them is sufficient. – Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004) |
| Prayer of the day We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love. – The Book of Common Prayer |
As I continue my journey with Thomas Merton, I am inspired and challenged by his words. In many parts of this nation and world, nonviolence and peacemaking aren’t popular topics.
After a wonderful and life-giving training event Denise and I offered to the Session (Council) at Carrollton Presbyterian Church, we sank into the couch after dinner. Looking for something to watch on Netflix, we discovered the movie “Big Miracle,” a story about the rescue of a whale family in Point Barrow, Alaska.
One of the powerful parts of this movie (based on a true story) was the cooperation between the Alaska Air National Guard, the Indigenous people of Point Barrow, an oil industry executive, members of Greenpeace, and the Soviet crew of an icebreaker. This cooperative effort resulted in the freeing of the mama and papa whales. Sadly the baby whale didn’t make it.
To put it into context… Reagan was at the end of his presidency and Gorbachev was the leader of the USSR… the time was a time of change as Glasnost encouraged mutual cooperation between the Soviet Republic and the United States. I am certain that if Merton had been alive, he would have celebrated this mutual cooperation for the greater good, in this case, saving the lives of two whales. I also believe that he would mourn the gigantic step backwards that has happened since the departure of Gorbachev and the ascent of Putin.
These words of his from his book, Blessed are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence as found in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, p. 130. — Instead of trying to use the adversary as leverage for one’s own effort to realize an ideal, nonviolence seeks only to enter into a dialogue with him in order to attain, together with him, the common good of man. Nonviolence must be realistic and concrete.
My continued prayer and the root of my own ministry is to walk with our congregation as we seek to be instruments of God’s peace. Where our mission is, in the words of the prophet Micah, Do justice, love kindness/mercy, and walk humbly with God and with one another.
“The spirit of forgiveness is closely related to the sense of the Sacred. In order to hurt/destroy another being, it is necessary to blot out the sacredness. Forgiveness requires looking beneath the surface, seeing beyond the fear and anger, allowing compassion and understanding of our common woundedness to take over. This type of forgiveness happens on many levels, personal and societal.”—Rosemary Lynch and Mary Litell, Peace Grows!
“It is the destruction of the world
in our own lives that drives us
half insane, and more than half.
To destroy that which we were given
in trust: how will we bear it?” —Wendell Berry
Sometimes Thomas Merton’s words are all I need to hear. This is one of those times!
Let me seek, then, the gift of silence and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all. (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 194)
The last two outings that we have taken have been sort of a history trail. The history of these two places is dark and very sad. The tree stands on land where the Cherokee people once lived. From this place and others like it, an entire nation was removed from the land and forced to walk from Georgia to Oklahoma in what is called “The Trail of Tears.” The stories of brutality, naked greed on the part of white people along with the state & national governments are hard to read and listen to. But we must hear their stories and honor them.
The Red-winged Blackbird was in a tree close to a spring that had providentially arose following a storm and lightning strike on August 14th, 1864 at Andersonville. This gave some fresh water to the POW’s living inside of the prison stockade. One would need to read the stories and the history of this place in order to understand the horrific conditions that the Union prisoners endured. If you were only to look at the site as it is today, you would see a green and lush meadow with a meandering creek cutting through it. You wouldn’t see in your mind’s eye the overcrowded and muddy ground where the POW’s lived and died.
What struck me about both places was the fact that sites of great darkness slowly transformed into beautiful settings. That healing took many years to take hold and the work of healing is still far from over as our nation continues to grapple with the ugly and brutal parts of our history that many wish to gloss over or ignore. This type of healing must continue as we move forward in life’s journey.
Today has been a day of reflection for me. A guided meditation that we listened to this morning helped remind us of nature’s beauty and the holy encounters we have had in nature. Even with the beauty though, we were given the opportunity to acknowledge the pain that either the land felt or that we had experienced.
In his journal entry from December 2nd, 1948, Thomas Merton writes about his own reflections in nature. A thousand small high clouds went flying majestically like ice-floes, all golden and crimson and saffron, with clean blue and aquamarine behind them, and shades of orange and red and mauve down by the surface of the land where the hills are just visible in a pearl haze and the ground was steel-white with frost—every blade of grass as stiff as wire. (Entering the Silence, p. 248) This is such a vivid word-picture that Merton painted. Yet he also painted vividly horrifying pictures as he confronted the horrors of war and the nuclear arms race.
I need to remember each time that we go out for a hike or walk the stories we see in front of us and the beautiful pictures we paint with our cameras are only part of the story. We need to simply be present in the midst of creation with open hearts, minds, and spirits. Perhaps then, we will experience something bigger than us as the land speaks to us.
