Good Morning!
I was awake in the night listening to two owls hoot back and forth.
I finished reading Frank Conroy's wonderful book, "Body & Soul,"
and began Carol Shield's book on Jane Austen. These books are a treat,
especially in the long stretch of the night.
This morning, I enjoyed breakfast by candlelight. How different my mood
when I eat and drink to the bounce of a flame. Thomas Merton was there
with me too. I am following a year with Thomas Merton.
His words for December 15 are titled "Love is the only
answer." I know it is the 17th. That is titled "In
the Company of Friends," and is about a day he spends with friends, but
on the 15th he quotes Albert Einstein and those words feel important to
me today.
Albert Einstein:
"My responsibility is to be in all reality a
peacemaker in the world, an apostle, to bring people to truth, to make
my whole life a true and effective witness to God's truth."
"We must revolutionize our thinking, revolutionize
our actions, and must have the courage to revolutionize our relations
among the nations of the world. Cliches of yesterday will no
longer do...... To bring this home to men all over the world is the
most important and fateful function intellectuals have ever had to
shoulder. Will they have enough courage to overcome their own
nationalities to the extent that is necessary to induce the peoples of
the world to change their deep-rooted national traditions in a most
radical fashion?"
Merton responds to this: "Love is the only answer. But
medieval talk about love does nothing. What does love mean
today? What is its place in the enormous dimensions of the modern
world? We have to love in a new way and with a new attitude, and
I suppose perhaps the first thing to do is admit that I do not know the
meaning of love in any context - ancient or new."
This was written in 1957. I feel we are learning to "love
in a new way and with a new attitude." We have tools for that
now. I'll list just a few with my own personal bias: Rosen
work, Fred Luskin's work on forgiveness, Marshall Rosenberg's work on
non-violence, Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker's work on communication,
Karen Roeper's work with Essential Motion and Eyes of the
Beholder. There are therapists and somatic workers, and a new
integration of religions working together. I believe we live in
the best of times, and yes, just as a child steps forward, and then,
back, we seem to sometimes do the same, and, yet, the direction
continues forward, forward, forward into the light. I feel that
thoroughly in my bones, the goodness of this world, the people in it,
and the heart.
Savor the full love in your heart today. Isn't it an enormously
warm and cozy, expansive and uplifting place to be, to live, and to
share?
I finished reading Frank Conroy's wonderful book, "Body & Soul,"
and began Carol Shield's book on Jane Austen. These books are a treat,
especially in the long stretch of the night.
This morning, I enjoyed breakfast by candlelight. How different my mood
when I eat and drink to the bounce of a flame. Thomas Merton was there
with me too. I am following a year with Thomas Merton.
His words for December 15 are titled "Love is the only
answer." I know it is the 17th. That is titled "In
the Company of Friends," and is about a day he spends with friends, but
on the 15th he quotes Albert Einstein and those words feel important to
me today.
Albert Einstein:
"My responsibility is to be in all reality a
peacemaker in the world, an apostle, to bring people to truth, to make
my whole life a true and effective witness to God's truth."
"We must revolutionize our thinking, revolutionize
our actions, and must have the courage to revolutionize our relations
among the nations of the world. Cliches of yesterday will no
longer do...... To bring this home to men all over the world is the
most important and fateful function intellectuals have ever had to
shoulder. Will they have enough courage to overcome their own
nationalities to the extent that is necessary to induce the peoples of
the world to change their deep-rooted national traditions in a most
radical fashion?"
Merton responds to this: "Love is the only answer. But
medieval talk about love does nothing. What does love mean
today? What is its place in the enormous dimensions of the modern
world? We have to love in a new way and with a new attitude, and
I suppose perhaps the first thing to do is admit that I do not know the
meaning of love in any context - ancient or new."
This was written in 1957. I feel we are learning to "love
in a new way and with a new attitude." We have tools for that
now. I'll list just a few with my own personal bias: Rosen
work, Fred Luskin's work on forgiveness, Marshall Rosenberg's work on
non-violence, Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker's work on communication,
Karen Roeper's work with Essential Motion and Eyes of the
Beholder. There are therapists and somatic workers, and a new
integration of religions working together. I believe we live in
the best of times, and yes, just as a child steps forward, and then,
back, we seem to sometimes do the same, and, yet, the direction
continues forward, forward, forward into the light. I feel that
thoroughly in my bones, the goodness of this world, the people in it,
and the heart.
Savor the full love in your heart today. Isn't it an enormously
warm and cozy, expansive and uplifting place to be, to live, and to
share?