Thomas Merton’s life without care

What does the solitary life mean? It is the same as all monastic life. There is one basic, essential thing in the monastic life and in the Christian life, the thing that we all seek in one way or another, and it is some assurance that it is possible in this kind of life to put … Continue reading Thomas Merton’s life without care

Camas Lilies

Camas Lilies Consider the liles of the field, the blue banks of camas opening into acres of sky along the road. Would the longing to lie down and be washed by that beauty abate if you knew their usefulness, how the natives ground their bulbs for flour, how the settlers’ hogs uprooted them, grunting in … Continue reading Camas Lilies

Jesus’s Provocative Political Protest

My most primary concern right now actually involves three parts, each inter-related division corresponding to description, analysis, and prescription: the increasingly disfigured state of the planet and its inhabitants (human and otherwise), exemplified by the financial, ecological, ethical, and other crises;the ways in which capitalism (and its collaborating power structures, including “democracy”) fundamentally drives (and … Continue reading Jesus’s Provocative Political Protest

Clinging to the Invisible God

Can I hope that I am now in a new area, traveling more securely, and that my commitment to the hermit life will be something more than a comic gesture? Is the whole thing just a fantastic private comedy? I question myself and my whole life very seriously. The real absurdity of it all! The … Continue reading Clinging to the Invisible God

Summer

Tent tethered among jackpine and blue- bells. Lacewings rise from rock incubators. Wild geese flying north. And I can't remember who I'm supposed to be. I want to learn how to purr. Abandon myself, have mistresses in maidenhair fern, own no tomorrow nor yesterday: a blank shimmering space forward and back. I want to think … Continue reading Summer

To live or to recount

I've been thinking a lot about these words this week: This is what I have been thinking: for the most commonplace event to become an adventure, you must – and this is all that is necessary – start recounting it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives … Continue reading To live or to recount

The Slough of Despond

But then comes the dawning comprehension of all that a writer's life implies: not easy day-dreaming, but hard work at turning the dream into reality without sacrificing all of its glamour; not the passive following of someone else's story, but the finding and finishing of a story of one's own; not writing a few pages … Continue reading The Slough of Despond