The Inner Journey

Winter; a time for solitude and reflection. I sense it keenly today with the snow and dense fog surrounding us.I can barely see the birch trees outside my window.

It is my intention to start each day with quiet time that includes reading followed with the practice of mindfulness. Today I picked up an old favorite book that deeply touched my heart when I read it many years ago. I wanted to share some thoughts with you from A Seven Day Journey With Thomas Merton by Esther de Waal

Day One - The Call
"...The inner journey, a journey we all must make. Our real journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.

This is a time apart, a time to be alone with myself and with God. I have given it to myself as gift but also as necessity, because I recognise that this is something that I need for myself, that I want to make a priority in my life at this moment. This is a time to acknowledge my total and utter dependence on God, my need for Him, my great longing for Him...I am coming apart in order that I may find again, and strengthen, that person whom I most deeply and truly am before God. 

...this may be a time for the deepening of love, faith, and prayer.

...so I try not to strive and not to lay any huge burdens or expectations upon myself...the start must be simply to stay still, to accept myself where I find myself, to be open to the present.

...Perhaps in the end it simply amounts to becoming aware, to being totally present to this moment, to being ready to listen... and that in doing so we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained; the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations...

...May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the centre of our being. It will not fail us."

I have felt the experience of "coming apart" that Merton refers to. A life totally shaken to the core, even uprooted and now the challenge of new birth, growth, strengthening and expanding. This inner journey is hard. I'm not consistent in my efforts or my awareness. But I do have moments, glimpses of peace and deep love and even feeling grounded. Having an open heart and a spirit of gratitude is imperative.