Author: Resa Pearson

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Covenant

God
knocks at my door
seeking a home for his son.

Rent is cheap, I say.

I don’t want to rent. I want to buy, says God.

I’m not sure I want to sell,
but you might come in to look around.

I think I will, says God.

I might let you have a room or two.

I like it, says God. I’ll take the two.
You might decide to give me more some day.
I can wait, says God.

I’d like to give you more,
but it’s a bit difficult. I need some space for me.

I know, says God, but I’ll wait. I like what I see.

Hm, maybe I can let you have another room.
I really don’t need it that much.

Thanks, says God, I’ll take it. I like what I see.

I’d like to give you the whole house
but I’m not sure.

Think on it, says God. I wouldn’t put you out.
Your house would be mine and my son would live in it.
You’d have more space than you’d ever had before.

I don’t understand at all.

I know, says God, but I can’t tell you about that.
You’ll have to discover it for yourself.
That can only happen if you let me have the whole house.

A bit risky, I say.

Yes, says God, but try me.

I’m not sure—
I’ll let you know.

I can wait, says God. I like what I see.

–Margaret  Halaska, OFM

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Thomas Merton

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”
― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Once in Kentucky by Mark Van Dorn, About Thomas Merton, read by Br David Stendahl Rahst
AMAZING Merton documentary 50:39 total – start at 5:20
Merton’s Hermitage 3:27
Silence and Contemplation – Merton in His Own Words 59:08 total – start at 5:05
Abbey of Gethsemani The Hermitige 10:35
New Seeds of Contemplation
Bishop Barron on Thomas Merton 9:32
Merton and his Legacy, Interview with Br. David Steindl-Rast 59:14 total -start at 6:20
True Wisdom and the self beyond ego, Jim Finley 17:18
What Contemplation is Not – Writings of Thomas Merton from New Seeds of Contemplation 4:21
The Seven Storey Mountain
A Book of Hours
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St. Catherine of Siena

“What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.”

“I have made a Bridge of my Word, of my only-begotten Son, and this is the truth. I have given you the Bridge of my Son, in order that, passing across the flood (of the tempestuous sea of this life), you may not be drowned.”

“To join two things together there must be nothing between them or there cannot be a perfect fusion. Now realize that this is how God wants our soul to be, without any selfish love of ourselves or of others in between, just as God loves us without anything in between.”

.

St. Catherine of Sienna biography. 2:58
Catherine of Siena: The Dialog
Fr Scott Wood of St. Catherine of Sienna
The Gift of Tears
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A Fresh Start

Post-pandemic energy meets promptings of the Spirit. I’ve gifted myself with a spot to share my treasures. I hope to be useful and nourishing. And not too full of myself. So I’m starting deliberately with no goals, kind of the opposite of my normal self. We’ll just see what happens and hope for grace.

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Videos of Poetry & Verse

Mary Oliver reads from “A Thousand Mornings”

1:31 to 3:42 Mark Van Dorn, Once in Kentucky about Thomas Merton read by Br David Stendahl Rahst

David Whyte recites Derek Walcott’s “Love After Love”

Frederick Buechner reads “Tears”

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The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

–Rumi: Selected Poems, trans Coleman Barks with John Moynce, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson (Penguin Books, 2004)

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Friday Videos: May 28th, 2021

What is the Trinity? 2:24

Brant Pitre The Holy Trinity 11:10

Rohr: God is Relationship Itself 3:39

3Min theology: What is the Trinity? 3:29

Nabeel Quereshi explaining the Trinity 7:57