Categories
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

Categories
prayer Prayers

Undoing Evil

Dear God in heaven

In your great mercy

Turn the evil we do

Against the evil we do

So we

And our enemies

May be undone

From evil

And thereby free

To undo it.


This kind does not come out without prayer and fasting.

Jesus

Grace and peace to you…

dw

Categories
love Poetry

Without my love

I must become convinced and penetrated by the realization that without my love for [another] they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them.

My love must be to them the “sacrament” of the mysterious and infinitely selfless love God has for them.

The words I speak to them must be no other than the words of Christ Who deigns to reveal Himself to them in me.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island