Thomas Merton and a Twitter conversation
Here's a Twitter thread conversation between me and my Twitter friend "Bodmin Hermit" (@The Carceri) taking Thomas Merton as our starting point.
Bod = MERTON: No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees... But what can the wind say where there is no hearer? That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.
Me = Merton was my first encounter with spiritual writing as a teenager during a retreat at Downside Abbey: "Contemplative Prayer". I still have that copy. Later, "No Man Is An Island", "Seven Storey Mountain", which had a big impact, and others. Time to see what he says to me today.
Bod = His approach & record of his life, 7SM, and his hermit experiences are very head-on, without frills... Yet other writings & poetry, deeply mystical... Our spiritual journey with God is often about paradoxes! Dipping into this again is revealing - more tomorrow... bed now...zzz!
Me = Very true. It was the mystical side that grabbed me first. Then fascinating to see how that had developed in him. Happy zzzs... I need to avoid them right now on a train back from a Catholic Vocations Project meeting in London... Or else I miss Runcorn station!
Bod = Home again, home again, jigerty-jig! zzz
Bod = Contemplation is listening in silence, an expectancy, yet in a certain sense, we must truly begin to hear God when we have ceased to listen, a receptivity to a certain kind of message, but a general emptiness that waits to realize the fullness of the message of God.
Me = Like good soil waiting for the rain.
Me = Or the detachment and "quiet heart" that Meister Eckhart speaks of: We deafen God day and night with our words, “Lord, thy will be done.” But then when God’s will does happen, we are furious and don’t like it a bit. When our will becomes God’s will, that is certainly good; but... how much better it would be if God’s will were to become our will. There is nothing a person is able to offer God that is more pleasing to him than this kind of detachment... God needs nothing more from us than a quiet heart."
Bod = MERTON: No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees... But what can the wind say where there is no hearer? That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.
Me = Merton was my first encounter with spiritual writing as a teenager during a retreat at Downside Abbey: "Contemplative Prayer". I still have that copy. Later, "No Man Is An Island", "Seven Storey Mountain", which had a big impact, and others. Time to see what he says to me today.
Bod = His approach & record of his life, 7SM, and his hermit experiences are very head-on, without frills... Yet other writings & poetry, deeply mystical... Our spiritual journey with God is often about paradoxes! Dipping into this again is revealing - more tomorrow... bed now...zzz!
Me = Very true. It was the mystical side that grabbed me first. Then fascinating to see how that had developed in him. Happy zzzs... I need to avoid them right now on a train back from a Catholic Vocations Project meeting in London... Or else I miss Runcorn station!
Bod = Home again, home again, jigerty-jig! zzz
Bod = Contemplation is listening in silence, an expectancy, yet in a certain sense, we must truly begin to hear God when we have ceased to listen, a receptivity to a certain kind of message, but a general emptiness that waits to realize the fullness of the message of God.
Me = Like good soil waiting for the rain.
Me = Or the detachment and "quiet heart" that Meister Eckhart speaks of: We deafen God day and night with our words, “Lord, thy will be done.” But then when God’s will does happen, we are furious and don’t like it a bit. When our will becomes God’s will, that is certainly good; but... how much better it would be if God’s will were to become our will. There is nothing a person is able to offer God that is more pleasing to him than this kind of detachment... God needs nothing more from us than a quiet heart."
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