Our Real Journey

"Our real journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts."  - Thomas Merton

Merton teaches us that we can find God in the daily routines of life; in our inescapable responsibilities. In our chores, our work, and in our relationships with others. The ordinary and mundane become a path to God. In the Rule of St. Benedict the monk is told to handle the humblest material things with respect and reverence. The garden tools or the pots and pans, buildings, furniture, farming equipment are all respected, valued and even loved, not for their own sakes but for the sake of God to whom they belong. 

Esther de Waal, in her book "A Seven Day Journey with Thomas Merton", says in Merton she saw a man who was totally present to whatever he was doing, whatever he was handling. He had a gentleness, a respect and reverence for the worth of each thing however simple. He did not 'seek to capture or possess...he allowed the objects to remain true to themselves and to reveal themselves.'

Merton's photographs, found in "A Seven Day Journey," tell us a lot about how he saw the world. De Waal says, "They help me to be aware of the presence of God in things which otherwise I might pass by without noticing. Many of us might go in search of a rose, a sunset, and fail to notice a brick wall, the dead roots of a tree. Merton photographed the texture of the wood in the roots, the relationship of one simple thing to another, the shape and form of everything that came to hand in his immediate world. He went out to each thing allowed it to communicate its essence, to say what it would, reveal what it would. He was always insistent on our need to 'see directly what is in front of us'.

De Waal goes on to say..."finding this love and joy in created things asks of me detachment. Just as with people, I do not own or possess. Everything is mystery.  I thank God for his amazing generosity and as I do so I pray that I may grow in awareness, in detachment, in gratitude. 

I tell myself I will think on these things when I pick up my sketchbook, my pen, my paints.  Will I remember? Will I remember, when I do the laundry later today or clean a bathroom or cook a meal? I make a commitment to remember. Once again, this involves slowing down, taking time to be sensitive to life around me. As Merton teaches us, the place to look for God is right there in front of us, right where we are. But we need to learn to see, to hear, and to feel.