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The Art of Everyday Life
“I will lead you into solitude.
I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand,
because I want it to be the quickest way.
Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you,
to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain,
and therefore to reduce you to solitude.
Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone.
They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone.
And when you have been praised a little and loved a little
I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise
and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection.
And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth.”
From time immemorial solitude was assumed to be indispensible for spiritual growth.
For the solitude helps to see innermost thoughts of our mind and desires of our heart.
It also allows hearing the voice of the Master, who dwells inside our heart.
Perhaps it was the reason why Thomas Merton, one of the most popular writers of XX century, had chosen the hermitic life.
He was a monk in Gethsemane Abbey in United States.
The last years of his life he had spent in a hermitage near the abbey.
In his hermitage, Thomas Merton had been praying, meditating, chopping the firewood and writing.
It was also a time of his inner struggle,
which stressed the truth that solitude can be a great suffering
— if it is not one’s own choice.
However, if accepted and affirmed it helps to overcome all difficulties, and powers the spiritual growth.
Solitude brings closer and like rejoicing
brings fruit of rest,
together with morning mist knocks drops of dew.
Flowers drink it heartily,
when the mist falls you can see mountains born.
Thomas Merton has succeeded the ordeal of solitude.
Silent meditation helped him to discover
truths he shared with millions of people
thanks to his publications and books.
After the period of solitude he set out on a journey to Asia.
Before leaving to the Far East, he said:
“I wish I don’t return if I didn’t solve essential issue”
These words were like an omen.
He tragically died in Bangkok on December 10th, 1968.
It seems however, that he solved the issue that was so important to him.
The time of spiritual wrestling and solitary meditation
brought fruit of a new look on the world,
of the time of rejoicing and quite ecstatic illumination.
Few days before his death Thomas Merton had written:
“I understood that there no puzzles, that there is no problem,
and that mystery does not exist.
All issues had been solved and all became clear.
I saw, what I was blindly searching for.
I do not know what will come, but I know
that now I entered under the surface of phenomena and reached beyond it
what is only a shadow and reflexion of reality.
I don’t remember if ever in my life
I had such strong feeling of beauty
and spiritual might joined together in ecstatic illumination.”
Let’s not fear solitude.
Let’s use it for a moment of silent meditation.
The moments which will help us to change our life and to feel the nearness of God.
One who chooses solitude, will never be alone.
Speaker: Father Jan M. Bereza, OSB
Realization: Polish Television SA, Poznan, Poland
Translation and captions: Mirek Sopek, http://sopekmir.blogspot.com