barefoot
In what seems to be opening for me an odd and unexplored bit of life, maybe the best I can do is step back, shut up, quit thinking, get out of myself, watch and wait for whatever comes next. Comes to mind the springtime every year when I was inside, a scruffy boy of five or six or eight, maybe nine, with uncombed black hair and an unwashed face, standing in the kitchen looking out the screen door at the grass in the back yard sloping up to the dense woods beyond, asking mama if I can go barefoot now. Sometimes begging. The day she finally said yes, I didn't wear shoes again until school started in the Fall. The years before the rest of my life. Maybe I'll go back there.
Here, scroll down, is far better than anything I can think or say or do right now. If you aren't reading Father Richard, you might try it. He takes the sharp edge off of every morning.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Forty-seven
Thomas Merton:
Contemplation and Action
Joy and Sadness: A Lesson from Merton's Hermitage
Sunday, November 22, 2020
In 1985 my Franciscan “guardians” (as Francis called our superiors) gave me a year’s leave to spend in contemplation. It was a major turning point in my life, and ultimately led to the formation of the Center for Action and Contemplation.
The first thirty days of my “sabbatical” were spent in the hills of Kentucky, in Thomas Merton’s (1915–1968) hermitage about a mile away from the main monastery. I was absolutely alone with myself, with the springtime woods, and with God, hoping to somehow absorb some of Merton’s wisdom. That first morning, it took me a while to slow down. I must have looked at my watch at least ten times before 7:00 AM! I had spent so many years standing in front of crowds as a priest and a teacher. I had to find out who I was without those trappings—the naked me alone before God.
In the mornings I would put my chair in front of the door and watch the sun come up. In the late afternoons, I would move my chair to the other side of the hermitage and watch the sun go down. The little squirrels and birds came closer and closer. They’re not afraid when we’re absolutely still.
Father William McNamara’s definition of contemplation as “a long loving look at the real” became transformative for me. The world, my own issues and hurts, all my goals and desires gradually dissolved and fell into proper perspective. God became obvious and ever present. I understood what Merton meant when he said, “The gate of heaven is everywhere.” [1]
I tried to keep a journal of what was happening to me. Back then, I found it particularly hard to cry. But one evening I laid my finger on my cheek and found to my surprise that it was wet. I wondered what those tears meant. What was I crying for? I wasn’t consciously sad or consciously happy. I noticed at that moment that behind it all there was a joy, deeper than any private joy. It was a joy in the face of the beauty of being, a joy at all the wonderful and lovable people I had already met in my life. Cosmic or spiritual joy is something we participate in; it comes from elsewhere and flows through us. It has little or nothing to do with things going well in our own life at that moment. I remember thinking that this must be why the saints could rejoice in the midst of suffering.
At the same moment, I experienced exactly the opposite emotion. The tears were at the same time tears of an immense sadness—a sadness at what we’re doing to the earth, sadness about the people whom I had hurt in my life, and a sadness too at my own mixed motives and selfishness. I hadn’t known that two such contrary feelings could coexist. I was truly experiencing the nondual mind of contemplation.
Gateway to Action & Contemplation:
What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?
Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.
Listen to Fr. Richard read the prayer.
Story from Our Community:
Almost exactly a year ago today, I visited the Abbey of Gethsemani in Bardstown, Kentucky, to walk and be where Thomas Merton lived during his monastic life. It was a very special day as I have read and loved Merton my entire adult life. I even drove into Louisville and stood at the corner of Fourth and Walnut to be where he had a mystical experience. Fast forward to now and I am convinced that these last six months have been my contemplative period. At times I think back to what I asked God a year ago—action or contemplation? As a physician I have never taken the time to sit and meditate or center as much as I have done these past months. So I guess my answer was “Yes, and. . . ” —Alex S.
[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Doubleday: 1966), 142.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deepest Self (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2015), 61–63.
Image credit: Solitude in the Woods. Moon Night (detail), Ladislav Mednyánszky, 1870, Slovak National Gallery, Slovakia.