I came upon this little Thomas Merton book at Half Price the other day. It's a collection of his prayers, along with his pencil sketches. It's called "Dialogues with Silence". Just the first few pages had some great prayers that I thought I'd share here. Excerpts of course.
“What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.” Thomas Merton
“…Your [God’s] brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. Darkness is enough.” Thomas Merton “excerpt from prayer ‘Thou Art Not as I Have Conceived Thee’”
“If I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done?” Thomas Merton
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Soul Cravings Essay #1
Soul Cravings is a book by Erwin Raphael McManus. It is a book of essays that deal with an "exploration of the human spirit". In an attempt to force myself to write, I will be posting my own essays on the different essays offered in the book. My essays might seem somewhat hollow without reading the book for yourself, but hopefully I can make some sense of it all. Or just go out and read the book.
Essay #1 – The Introduction
“It seems that what he (Jesus) is implying is that we have a better chance of finding God in the universe within us than in the one that surrounds us”
“When your soul is sick, one of the symptoms is blindness”
“Bitterness is the enemy of love because it makes you unforgiving and unwilling to give love unconditionally.”
“It is the enemy of hope because you keep living in the past and become incapable of seeing a better future”
“…you may close your eyes to what your soul needs you most to see.”
This introduction is full of hope. Unlike many Christian writers, this author seems to really be coming from a “lived in” place. He has lived the struggle that he is inviting readers to experience for their own. This is similar to Terry Esau’s book “Surprise Me” because it isn’t as “hypothetical” and “theoretical” as many “Christian Living” books tend to be these days. Psychologists can hypothesize all they like, but to really have something to say, you must have experienced something very challenging.
I have included some quotes that struck me as I read. The first deals with the idea that the Kingdom of God is within us. Not a new thought, of course, and it’s even getting a little overused in the institutional church these days, but it’s a real idea, that speaks to the unspeakable. To enter the Kingdom is an idea we get; to have the Kingdom come to Earth, is also understandable. That’s just about travel, and a change of scenery. But what does it mean to have the Kingdom of God within yourself? What does it mean to have a “universe within us”? Crazy thoughts. Big ideas. Worth the time to ponder.
I liked his idea about soul sickness. That mental illnesses and different neurosis might be blamed on an illness of the soul. The metaphor and the reality start to blur, and there is where Truth is often found. I have fashioned myself to be a seeker. As was pointed out by a friend recently, I am the embodiment of “blessed are those who hunger for they shall be fed”. What hungers in this beatitude? I’d say it’s the soul. And while Christians will speak endlessly about the “God Shaped Hole” I don’t think things are quite so simple, or easy. What the soul hungers for might be different for different people. Hell, it might be different for different cultures, races, religious followers. Challenging ideas. I’ve gone further than Mr. McManus probably intends to go, but that’s just me. The effects of soul sickness start to speak to the idea that only “God knows the heart of man”. Perhaps it could be said that only God can cure such illnesses. Hmmm.
The effects of bitterness on the health of the soul are also quite intriguing. If the soul is as conscious as the author is asserting; and if God is as involved as Christians strongly believe, then it is important to pay attention. This goes back to Terry’s book, because it is about paying attention to what God has in store for you. Be watchful of what God wants to reveal to you. And these revelations will not necessarily come in a blinding flash of light, but rather in a simple moment of awareness. Observing humanity at its best and at its worst. Seeing opportunities to embody the former and seizing them.
A “good” person, in my estimation, is one who is working hand in hand with their soul. A “bad” person is one that battles with it. I am assuming, of course, that the soul is inherently good, which may or may not be the case. But in life, and faith, sometimes we need some assumptions. We just must remember that sometimes the things that we assume to be true may turn out to be false, and the things we were certain were lies, may reveal Truths we never imagined.
Essay #1 – The Introduction
“It seems that what he (Jesus) is implying is that we have a better chance of finding God in the universe within us than in the one that surrounds us”
“When your soul is sick, one of the symptoms is blindness”
“Bitterness is the enemy of love because it makes you unforgiving and unwilling to give love unconditionally.”
“It is the enemy of hope because you keep living in the past and become incapable of seeing a better future”
“…you may close your eyes to what your soul needs you most to see.”
This introduction is full of hope. Unlike many Christian writers, this author seems to really be coming from a “lived in” place. He has lived the struggle that he is inviting readers to experience for their own. This is similar to Terry Esau’s book “Surprise Me” because it isn’t as “hypothetical” and “theoretical” as many “Christian Living” books tend to be these days. Psychologists can hypothesize all they like, but to really have something to say, you must have experienced something very challenging.
I have included some quotes that struck me as I read. The first deals with the idea that the Kingdom of God is within us. Not a new thought, of course, and it’s even getting a little overused in the institutional church these days, but it’s a real idea, that speaks to the unspeakable. To enter the Kingdom is an idea we get; to have the Kingdom come to Earth, is also understandable. That’s just about travel, and a change of scenery. But what does it mean to have the Kingdom of God within yourself? What does it mean to have a “universe within us”? Crazy thoughts. Big ideas. Worth the time to ponder.
I liked his idea about soul sickness. That mental illnesses and different neurosis might be blamed on an illness of the soul. The metaphor and the reality start to blur, and there is where Truth is often found. I have fashioned myself to be a seeker. As was pointed out by a friend recently, I am the embodiment of “blessed are those who hunger for they shall be fed”. What hungers in this beatitude? I’d say it’s the soul. And while Christians will speak endlessly about the “God Shaped Hole” I don’t think things are quite so simple, or easy. What the soul hungers for might be different for different people. Hell, it might be different for different cultures, races, religious followers. Challenging ideas. I’ve gone further than Mr. McManus probably intends to go, but that’s just me. The effects of soul sickness start to speak to the idea that only “God knows the heart of man”. Perhaps it could be said that only God can cure such illnesses. Hmmm.
The effects of bitterness on the health of the soul are also quite intriguing. If the soul is as conscious as the author is asserting; and if God is as involved as Christians strongly believe, then it is important to pay attention. This goes back to Terry’s book, because it is about paying attention to what God has in store for you. Be watchful of what God wants to reveal to you. And these revelations will not necessarily come in a blinding flash of light, but rather in a simple moment of awareness. Observing humanity at its best and at its worst. Seeing opportunities to embody the former and seizing them.
A “good” person, in my estimation, is one who is working hand in hand with their soul. A “bad” person is one that battles with it. I am assuming, of course, that the soul is inherently good, which may or may not be the case. But in life, and faith, sometimes we need some assumptions. We just must remember that sometimes the things that we assume to be true may turn out to be false, and the things we were certain were lies, may reveal Truths we never imagined.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
