Thomas Merton | dual personalities

“Lift your head a little higher, Spread the love like fire”*

by chuckofish

What a long week this has been! I am way more than ready for the weekend!

Daughter #1 is driving in from Columbia tonight and we will watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics and toast our American team.

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Team U.S. Curling is ready to go!

On Saturday there is a gallery auction at the Link Auction House and we are going–how nice to have company!

Have you been looking for a copper deep sea diver’s helmet? There are two available!

Tomorrow night is the “Elegant Italian Dinner”–the annual fundraising event for our youth mission trip at church–such a major social event!

The OM will accompany me, but daughter #1 will be otherwise occupied.

And, of course, we hope to see the wee babes, those adorable goofballs.

That’s enough, don’t you agree?

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”

–Thomas Merton

*tobyMac, “Speak Life”

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My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

The painting is “Spring Sky” by Eric Sloane

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January 2, 2013

Dedicated to many absurdities

by chuckofish

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race!

To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. I have the immense joy of being a member of a race in which God became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now 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.

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Well, what do you say in 2013 we all try very hard not to be overwhelmed by the sorrows and stupidities of the human race and instead to shine like the sun? I’m going to try.

And don’t forget this: