Merton's statement reminds me of my beloved book, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment," in which it is laid down that We must go beyond reason to love.
We are instructed to love by most any spiritual person from way before Christ to Haight Ashbury hippies up to right now, yet still we quibble, ponder, analyze and argue...within our self and without. Often not about the merits of love, but about our intellectual understanding of love... or, more to the point, why your understanding needs upgraded to be more like mine.
I guess that's why We must go beyond reason to love is my go-to...along with I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be and, of course, Thank you. I kinda think of those as my Trinity mainly because the real Trinity is a tish over my head.
What I especially connect with in Merton's statement is, attempting to do for others without deepening our own self-understanding. There it is. Our own self-understanding is God's hidey hole. How else do we quit judging, gossiping, resisting but by, before we start down that wrong road again, going within and asking what our problem is here. Face it: I can't find the solution to you within me...I can within my own egoic mind but how far does that get me?
All the right answers to life, love and the pursuit of happiness seem to be really simple. It's the doing that we complicate...actually, it's the detours we take in the doing that complicate. Oh, hey! What if the detours are the side trips laid out by God for us to learn our still more spiritual lessons from?
Love the detours, don't be as nasty as we want to be on those detours, and keep thank you rolling at all times.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment