The knowledge or awareness of God can sometimes be elusive, but other times can strike us like a bolt of lightning in the middle of the ordinary …
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. …
“This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. … I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
“Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”
This was the monk Thomas Merton’s great epiphany one day as he was running errands in the middle of the bustling city. It was so profound that today there is a historic marker on the very spot in the middle of downtown Louisville. How appropriate in these days where so many seek to divide and indeed incite and provoke us to be suspicious of one another that Merton’s vision reminds us who and whose we are. He also wrote a well-known prayer that seems “spot on” in these days where knowing what to do next can seem baffling and uncertain. It speaks of our times, and yet, it is timeless. Many of us know it and have prayed it over the years, but perhaps it is worth revisiting.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
We are entering the season of autumn, of letting go, of changing light and gathering harvests. It is an opportunity to look with new eyes. Perhaps the prayer of Thomas Merton can speak to us anew in these days.
