questions

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Now my whole being breathes the wind that blows through the belfry and my hand is on the door through which I see the heavens. The door swings out upon a vast sea of darkness and of prayer. 

Will it come like this, the moment of my death? Will You open a door upon the great forest and set my feet upon a ladder under the moon and take me out among the stars?


—Thomas Merton
from The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton, Sophfronia Scott, p. 175-176

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wait - what ?

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hidden wholeness

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There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity,
a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.
This mysterious Unity and Integrity is
Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans.

There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity,
a silence that is a fount of action and joy,
It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me
from the unseen roots of all created being,
welcoming me tenderly,
saluting me with indescribable humility.

This is at once my own being, my own nature,
and the Gift of my Creator's Thought and Art within me,
speaking as Hagia Sophia,
speaking as my sister, Wisdom.


—Thomas Merton
Hagia Sophia

Dawn. The Hour of Lauds.

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the fall

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There is no where in you a paradise that is no place
     and there
You do not enter except without a story.
To enter there is to become unnameable.

Whoever is there is homeless for he has no door
     and no identity
with which to go out and to come in. 

Whoever is nowhere is nobody, and therefore cannot exist
     except as unborn:
No disguise will avail him anything

Such a one is neither lost nor found.

But he who has an address is lost.

They fall, they fall into apartments and are
     securely established!

They find themselves in streets.  They are licensed
To proceed from place to place
They now know their own names
They can name several friends and know
Their own telephones must some time ring.

If all telephones ring at once, if all names are shouted at
     once and
all cars crash at one crossing:
If all cities explode and fly away in dust
Yet identities refuse to be lost.  There is a name and number
     for everyone.

There is a definite place for bodies, there are pigeon holes
     for ashes:
Such security can business buy!

Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.

They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn
     flower of nothing:
This is the paradise tree.  It must remain unseen until words
     end and arguments are silent.


–Thomas Merton
In the Dark Before Dawn

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the secret

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Since I am
Somebody’s dream,
I have a good life.

Sometimes I go away in my sailboat on a cloud
and take a quiet little trip.

I have a secret

which I have learned how to read inside myself;

if I told it to you,

it would make you laugh.

My heart is naked

and no one can put clothes on it,   

and nothing can be put on

that will not immediately fall off.

My secret is ignorant,   

it doesn’t sing songs,

no lie,

it has nothing to tell you.

My two eyes

are maps of the planet—

I see everything

and nothing upsets me.

Just now

I was in China

and saw there a great piece of happiness   

that belonged to one man.

And I have been to the center of the earth,   

where there is no suffering.

If on your loneliest nights,   

I visit other planets

and the most secret stars of all,

besides being no one,   

know that I am you   

and everybody.

But if I go away

without giving you a name to remember me with,

how will I find

the right dream to return to?

You won’t have to mark down

on your calendar that I am coming back;   

don’t bother to write me into your notebooks.   

I will be around

when you aren’t thinking about me,

without hair or a neck,   

without a nose and cheeks   

no reputation—

there won’t be anything.

I am a bird   

which God made.

–Thomas Merton

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