23 October 2015

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Dear God,

“Most of the statements made about the solitary life are sheer nonsense. I can’t think of anything less likely to make person indifferent to other people. Quite the contrary. I think that the business of herding people together is what makes them hate and misunderstand each other, or teaches them indifference.” Merton

Maybe we should make it mandatory for our politicians to take retreats in silence and solitude for at least a month at a time. The ones who could stand to be alone with themselves for that long could stay in the game. Surely this would be the end of Cruz’s and Trump’s political careers. Hillary and Jeb would be fine as long as their teams told them which persona they should take on the retreat. Bernie would have no trouble; it would be like most of his political career — a lone man crying out in the desert, make way for the, well, not the Lord really, but at least a populist wakeup call to the specific class warfare we’ve been living under since the late 70’s and the corporate response to Nader.

But who wants to talk about politics? Not me.  Continue reading →

22 October 2015

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Dear God,

“That is all I do. Throw stones in the air, and if somebody yells I know the stone came down.” Merton

I don’t feel like praying today. I don’t feel like writing. I don’t feel like working. At times, I wonder why any of this matters, this senseless spinning about, worrying over my own work and the world, when most of us seem intent on watching the whole thing go up in flames as long as Hollywood still pumps out movies about it. It would probably be best to just sit back and warm myself by the fire, to grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show as well.

I suppose I need hope and faith. Continue reading →

20 October 2015

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Dear God,

“Your last book of poems deserves half a dozen Guggenheims. It is really splendid, you have really got in there now: the others I always felt were sort of tending in the right direction, now you are on your beam. I didn’t find any clichés anywhere, and that in a book by a Catholic and a religious is a major miracle. It is terse and even Zen-like, and it is the integrity of the experience that above all comes through. Great, man, great.” Merton

I’m finishing Skinny Legs and All at the moment. It’s all leading towards the final, apocalyptic, catastrophe, but I’m certain it will end up a joke. Robbins’s a comedian after all, and a damn good writer. He has some of the best metaphors of anyone I’ve read. He’s witty, and wise, and irreverent, and funny. He’s someone who I’d love to write like someday.

I read Matthew McConaughey’s “13 Lessons I Learned” when I woke up today. Continue reading →

19 October 2015

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Dear God,

“But then the natural law can always find a way of being dishonest in honor of the Gospel. To save the Church. Yes, that’s what the dear old Church needs: the protection of natural law, or even, who knows, of gang law? At any rate, protection. She simply can’t get along anymore with this Christian stuff about charity, it’s plain ruinous and utterly against the moral theology manuals. So let’s wipe out the reds with a first strike. This will really put the Gospel message of peace across to the backward savages in those uncultivated and uncivilized countries where they still kill with spears. (Haven’t caught up with the more sophisticated angels of double effect.)” Merton

This comes from a letter written to the Jesuit priest, radical peace activist, and draft card burner, Daniel J. Berrigan, in 1961. It’s always fun to read Merton talk to a fellow man or woman of the cloth. It’s here where we see his more acerbic, jesting, and cynical side towards Christian religion come out. What a wonder, I like that.

Of course, for Merton it’s never destruction for destruction’s sake. Continue reading →

16 October 2015

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Dear God,

“There are times when it is necessary to read, and even to read quite a lot, in order to store up material and get new perspectives.” Merton

“My prayer is then a kind of praise rising up from the center of Nothing and Silence… It is not ‘thinking about’ anything, but a direct seeking of the Face of the Invisible, which cannot be found unless we become lost in Him who is Invisible.” Merton

Storing up new material and directly seeking the Face of the Invisible through the negation of all thought — two ideas seemingly in contradiction. Yet, this is the center of the mystical traditions in almost all religions. How could it be otherwise? We must approach that Whom which cannot be wrapped in language, for She is beyond all differentiation, through meditation and the negation of the I as well as the ever persistent attempt to come to terms with the No-thing through the repetition and difference of language.

Last night I was alone after having worked all day grant writing. I wanted to write more but was tired. I drank a beer. Continue reading →

14 October 2015

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Dear God,

“I am in hopes that as time goes on the value of such solitary retreats will become more and more evident and we will gradually begin to be able to have these advantages, beginning with a few days and so on.” Merton

Often while reading Merton I find I trail beside him with no problem, gently drifting along with his thoughts and language. Then I read something like this, and I’m reminded how far apart we are. I wonder if I have even begun to embark on any type of spiritual journey. I know that Merton said, somewhere, that in the spiritual life their are only beginners, but I’ve never desired to receive the permission to — Actually, that’s not true. I’ve been wanting to go on a solitary retreat for quite some time now, it’s just a matter of money. Maybe this is not a good example. This is better: “I hope to get in three or four hours a day of meditation besides my other office prayer, and the work I have to do…” Unless by meditation he means smoking a joint and going for a hike, I have trouble relating to this.  Continue reading →

12 and 13 October 2015

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Dear God,

12 October 2015

I’m stoned right not. I woke too late to pray today. Thus, here I am after work writing/praying while stoned.

I blame the rum I drank last night.

I worked several hours today, out of which I can only in good conscience bill for 4.5. I went to the climbing gym with Philip. That guy’s a beast. I had trouble keeping up. It didn’t help that I was a little hungover. Continue reading →

10 October 2015

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Dear God,

“It seems to me that mutual comprehension between Christians and Moslems (sic) is something of very vital importance today, and unfortunately it is rare and uncertain, or else subjected to the vagaries of politics.” Merton

I don’t plan on writing these prayers every Saturday, which isn’t to say I won’t pray in one form or another. I’m like Brother Lawrence in that way, constantly in a state of communication with the divine. Haha. Yeah right.

But seriously, these words struck me today, and I thought, what the hell? I’ll pray. It seems pertinent on a day when ignorant and racist hillbillies and rednecks (which isn’t to say all hillbillies and rednecks are ignorant and racist; some, many I’m sure, are fine and lovely and good, but you know that) are going out to protest Mosques in our country, possibly with concealed firearms. It’s just another way for white supremacy, fear, ignorance, and stupidity to manifest itself — a deadly cocktail, all to often available in the American social and political sphere. Continue reading →

9 October 2015

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Dear God,

“My outlook is not purely American and I feel sometimes disturbed by the lack of balance in the powerful civilization of this country. It is technologically very strong, spiritually superficial and weak. There is much good in the people, who are very simple and kind, but there is much potential evil in the irresponsibility of the society that leaves all to the interplay of human appetites, assuming that everything will adjust itself automatically for the good of all. This unfortunately is fatal and may lead to the explosion that will destroy half the world, of which there is serious danger.” (51-52)

First, I want to say, briefly, that I came to an answer for the question I posed yesterday about who we might follow. Continue reading →

8 October 2015

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Dear God,

“There is no question that here is a living and convincing truth, a deep mystical experience of the mystery of God our Creator Who watches over us at every moment with infinite love and mercy… It is highly practical, realistic, profoundly religious and set in the right perspective of direct relationship with the All-Holy God.” Merton is writing of Sufism to Abdul Aziz, a Pakistani bureaucrat who spent his free time in a rigorous, lifelong study of Sufi mysticism and spirituality. He was encouraged to write to Merton by a mutual friend. Merton speaks to him as “one spiritual man to another.” Continue reading →