Category: freedom

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Current Events freedom Poetry the real self truth

Nothing New

There is nothing new under the sun.

What we bemoan now we bemoaned seventy years ago
Seven hundred years ago

What we give away now, we gave away then

The freedom Jesus promised
To burn at the stake
To defy a tank
To hang on the cross

For the truth

dw

p.s.

I posted this earlier in response to a quote from Thomas Merton about how we are so inclined to go along with whatever group(s) we want to belong to.

Nothing New (2022)

This time, I’ll add another quote:

“You are a king then? ” Pilate asked.

“You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

“What is truth? ” said Pilate.

Gospel of John, chapter 18. Christian Standard Bible. CSB Reader’s Bible (p. 1603). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Grace and peace to you…
dw

Categories
freedom Poetry the real self

The Soul of Freedom

If I did not believe in God I think I would be bound in conscience to become an anarchist. Yet, if I did not believe in God, I wonder if I could have the consolation of being bound in conscience to do anything.

Conscience is the soul of freedom, it eyes, its energy, its life. Without conscience, freedom never knows what to do with itself. And a rational being who does not know what to do with [their self] finds the tedium of life unbearable. [They are] literally bored to death.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

I’ve been stuck
Trying to find my voice
To hear it in the clamor of the others
Droning on about scandalous politics
Whining about the downfall of society
What people stoop to to pick up a buck
A pile of which will make them free
Free from something
I don’t know what
Not free from puzzling out
How to spend the next minute

I’ve been stuck
not wanting to say all that
Or just that
Because there is more to say
I know there is
If I can just listen for that voice
Still and small
Telling me to speak and act
Freely and truly

There it is

Could that be Conscience?

Grace and peace to you…
dw

Photo by dw

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freedom hope Scripture truth

Perfect freedom

 

Freedom is perfect when no other love can impede our desire to love God.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

cropped-david-monje-2199131.jpg
From John’s gospel, Chapter 8:

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 79992-79998). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Grace and peace and freedom to you…

dw

Photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash

 

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freedom Poetry

That tree, you know the one

This is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — disgust with the things we have misused and hatred of ourselves for misusing them.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

cropped-david-monje-2199131.jpg

That tree, you know the one,
where Eve got sucker punched
and Adam melted away,
didn’t even stand up for her,
distracted, maybe, by the spectre
of knowing her nakedness
apart from her soul,
thus beginning the dehumanizing
of one image of God by another,
the desecration of created things,
the discounting of God who made them;

That tree, you know the one,
that bides its time
while we distract ourselves
knowing the distraction will quiet
and we will one day stare and swallow
at the noose our own demand
to experience something other than God’s provision,
the difference between Good and Evil,
has tied for us –
we the condemner and the condemned;

That tree, you know the one,
where our discounted God
hung on our behalf
to show us pure Good,
to cut us free.

dw

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Categories
freedom the real self

Is our happiness too small?

 

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Continue reading “Is our happiness too small?”