‘Our real journey,’ wrote Thomas Merton, ‘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. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action. I pray that we may all do so.’
So many people today hunger for the things of the spirit which all too often they do not find within our churches or synagogues. And yet the treasure that is beyond all price is waiting there for us, as Teilhard de Chardin discovered:
And so, for the first time in my life perhaps – although I am supposed to meditate every day!- I took the lamp and leaving the zone of every day preoccupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I felt that my power of action emanates… but I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me… And when I had tostop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless pit at my feet, and out of it came – arising I know not where – the current which I dare to call my life.
Thank you James. As always, both beautiful and helpful.
With love
Elizabeth
Very dear James,
Tom and I always read your posts, with much appreciation and the warmest of memories of our experiences in your group which we so sad to have to abandon.The inner life offers a solace that has never never been as important, when the external world is so frightening.