Pray as if it's the first time

 

 

There must be a time of day when the man who

makes plans forgets his plans,

and acts as if he had no plans at all.

 

There must be a time of day when the man who has

to speak falls very silent.

And his mind forms no more propositions,

and he asks himself:

Did they have a meaning?

 

There must be a time

when the man of prayer goes to pray

as if it were the first time in his life

he had ever prayed,

where the man of resolutions puts his

resolutions aside

as if they had all been broken,

and he learns a different wisdom;

 

distinguishing the sun from the moon,

the stars from the darkness,

the sea from dry land,

and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill......

 

No Man is an Island:

Thomas Merton

 

This is where I am today, friends. I sat in silence today, my candle flickering,  unable to say any prayer that made any sense. Tongue-tied I sat in the silence. I was feeling nothing except the sense that I had lost myself and I wanted me back. Caretaking does that.  

 

When I read these very wise words of Thomas Merton something within me sprang to life. The recognition that so much of what we are doing in our modern society makes it all but impossible to hear God's voice. I have felt that I needed to get away and hear the sigh of the wind in the pines.....I tried on Sunday. We drove all the way up to the rim, but there was a fire and all we could smell was smoke.

 

Sometimes it doesn't work out. But God is still here.....and within me, His Spirit.

 

As long as I have Him, what else do I need? In His fullness I can find everything I will ever want, need or desire. The need I feel within, that deepest longing that we all have, can be fulfilled in Him and only in Him.  

 

When I read the lines........"When the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed," my soul quickened. Merton got it. And I can get it too.

 

We are all broken. That's where we must start. And it's not so much a learning, it is a remembering who we are. In the Spirit of reconciliation we must turn and help heal each other. That is what makes God happiest of all. Too often we sit alone in our pain and confusion, when right next to us is someone who could help, and in letting them help us, we help them too.  

 

I leave you to prayer and meditation in every quiet moment you find today.

 

Meditation: Psalm 15