An agent of God in unusual form, he came with intent and sailed into the storm. He adorned those he chose with ineffable traits, true kindness and patience, from good into great. Slow movements could not veil the bright fire inside as he gifted humility, freedom from pride. While his wings were concealed from most human eyes, for those who drew near we saw through the disguise.
- With eternal gratitude to N & love for his family
These things shall pass and some great morning We'll look back and smile at heartaches we have known So don't forget when shadows gather The Lord our God is still the King upon his throne. A rose looks grey at midnight but the flame is just asleep And steel is strong because it knew the hammer and white heat These things shall pass and life be sweeter When love and faith are strong they cannot long endure. These things shall pass so don't you worry The darkest time is just one hour before dawn So hold up high and face your troubles And don't despair if you must face them all alone. A rose looks grey at midnight but the flame is just asleep And steel is strong because it knew the hammer and white heat These things shall pass and life be sweeter When love and faith are strong they cannot long endure. Lyrics by Stuart Hamblen
To know the Cross is not merely to know our own sufferings. For the Cross is the sign of salvation, and no man is saved in his own sufferings. To know the Cross is to know that we are saved by the sufferings of Christ; more, it is to know the love of Christ who underwent suffering and death in order to save us. It is, then, to know Christ. For to know His love is not merely to know the story of His love, but to experience in our spirit that we are loved by Him, and that in His love the Father manifests His own love for us, through His spirit poured forth in our hearts.
Thomas Merton – No Man is an Island
“The will is an active force; it is not naturally an organ of perception. In order for it to be able to perceive it should not – it must not – become passive, for then it would fall asleep or fade away, because its very nature is activity, and in ceasing to be active it would cease to be will; no, it should change centre of gravitation, ie transform “my will” into “thy will”.
It is the inner act of love alone that can accomplish the change of centre that the will uses or around which it gravitates. Instead of gravitating around the centre “me”, it can orientate itself around the centre “you”. This transformation, effected by love, is what one calls obedience.
Now, it is through obedience that the will is able to perceive. What it is able to perceive or be infused with is revelation from above, which inspires, directs and strengthens.”
Valentin Tomberg, Letter XII, Meditations on the Tarot.
“Let the command of His love be felt at the roots of my existence. Then let me understand that I do not consent to exist, but that I exist in order to consent. This is the living source of virtuous action: for all our good acts are acts of consent to the indications of His mercy and the movements of His grace.”
Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island
To know reality, I must feel it
To know depravity, I must drown in it
To know flesh, I must touch it
To know grief, we meet.
To know humility, I must bow to it
To know fear, I must be it
To know sorrow, I must be lost in it
To know violence, we embrace.
To know weakness, I am broken
To know loneliness, I am born
To know futility, I am faithless
To know freedom, I submit.
To know a language, I speak it
To know falsehoods, I lie
To know truth, I am silent
To love, I forgive.
23rd January 2020, Somerset, England.
God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial he makes us occupy the dock, the witness box and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
When I see my trials not as the collision of my life with a blind machine called fate, but as the sacramental gift of Christ’s love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name, then I can consecrate them and myself with them to God. For then I realise that my suffering is not my own. It is the Passion of Christ, stretching out its tendrils into my life in order to bear rich clusters of grapes, making my soul dizzy with the wine of Christ’s love, and pouring that wine as strong fire upon the whole world.”
No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merton
Q:
How do I experience God?
How do I experience His nearness?
The words presence and absence radiate strongly from my enquiries into these questions. In reaching for answers, I find myself embroiled in both of these qualities simultaneously. Approaching the divine enigma using the mechanism of language is an enterprise that continues to fascinate me, even in its inadequacies. The experience of God’s nearness comes wrapped in wonderful, tangled paradoxes. I’d like to share some of my rough cut paradoxes here.
How do I experience God in times of desolation?
In other words, how is God known and felt in challenging situations, when the drudgery of the mundane seems to blacken even the tiniest glimmer of the providential? The spiritually evolving individual understands that God’s perceived distance serves to test them. In stepping back, God is simply doing what all loving fathers do for their children: giving space for independent growth and learning. By not intervening, He offers us the free will choice to hone our skills, expand our capacity for love and deepen our wisdom – or not.
"For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Galatians 5:13
Above all, God wants to see if we continue to choose goodness and righteousness even when we feel that He is far away and we are standing alone on the most painful edge of solitary human experience. God gives us the gift of free will in honour of our potential, and the activation of this gift can only come through a journey of (perceived) separation.
It has turbo-charged my faith to understand that when God’s paternal presence is intangible, it is not an indicator of some great inadequacy on my part, but instead the sign of a loving manoeuvre made to aid my growth. When life is tough and I feel set adrift, I match these trials with a greater determination to cultivate humility and demonstrate my trustworthiness to our maker. Within this energy of perseverance and devotion, my faith flourishes.
"And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:27
On the other hand, when the external setting surrounds me with joy and happiness, the efforts I make towards bettering my faith are naturally more light-hearted. In contentment and bliss, faith blossoms with minimal grit and enterprise on my part. Whatever the outer circumstances bring, I keep doing the work of seeking Truth. Divine bribery is not required.
My perception of God as present or absent is not what matters. What matters is the grounding of faith within my heart. This is where God lives in my individual experience. He is always that close, and it is only ever my individual-self-in-pain-goggles that hinder my seeing of this.
The constantly broadening certainty of my faith serves to assist in cleaning the lenses of these self-goggles on a daily basis. Faith in the heart as the seat of my relationship with God has also given me a greater sense of stability – it brings the possibility of being content in my own actuality as it shifts from one moment to the next. Nonetheless, I continue to remind myself that all expectations are hurdles, and that one of the more noble of these hurdles comes in striving to ‘achieve’ the feeling that God is close to me at all times.
My spirit longs for Thee
Within my troubled breast,
Though I unworthy be
Of so divine a Guest.
Of so divine a Guest
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest
Unless it come from Thee.
Unless it come from Thee,
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see
No rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found
But in they blessed love:
O, let my wish be crowned,
And send it from above!
J. Byrom of Manchester, England (1692-1763)
Being a walking question mark 