Is Christian worship to be communion in correctness or communion in love?

Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

Art work created in community at a conference called Hutchmoot (2016). There, people from many different Christian faith traditions worship in love. It’s a beautiful thing.

Sometimes we’re so concerned about being right, that we forget:

In essentials unity
In non-essentials liberty
In all things charity

(not Thomas Merton, likely not Augustine, maybe Rupertus Meldenius or Marco Antonio de Dominis)

God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

The pocket mirror I carried during Lent (and my father’s reflection in it)

For the past several years during Lent, I have carried a mindfulness object to remind myself of something Christ-centered during that holy season.  This year I carried a little pocket mirror on which I had written the first three words of today’s quote by Thomas Merton.

And these were some of my thoughts about his words —

What if, instead of the four Greek words for love, or instead of the five ways to say “I love you” in Mandarin, or instead of the nine ways to say it in Russian — what if, at any given time on the planet Earth, there are over 7 billion words for Love, uttered by God Himself, and they each have a face, and hands, and feet?

What if each time God utters a person into being, He’s saying another word containing a partial thought of Him — and that word is Love?

What if I am a word for love? Am I living my life in such a way that others can see that?

Therefore, if you spend your life
trying to escape from the heat of the fire
that is meant to soften and prepare to become your true self…
you will be destroyed by the event
that was meant to be your fulfillment.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

New Seeds of Contemplation (Thomas Merton) — the sealing wax analogy

So often I pray not to be brittle.

The language of revelation is mysterious,
not in order that its meaning may be concealed from us,
but in order that we may be moved to seek it with a more fervent love.

Thomas Merton, Bread in the Wilderness

Easter egg hunt 2017

There is great joy in the finding.

A monk ought not to inquire how this one acts or how that one lives.
Questions like this take us away from prayer and draw us on to backbiting and chatter.
There is nothing better than to keep silent.

Thomas Merton, Wisdom of the Desert

Sometimes there are no words.