My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, coffee life, spirituality and asking deep questions.
“For me landscape seems to be important for contemplation; anyway I have no scruples about it.”
Thomas Merton
I could easily change the word landscape to nature in the above quote simply because it resonates with me better. Anyway, I have no scruples about it.
Solitude has its own special work: a deepening awareness that the world needs. A struggle against alienation. True solitude is deeply aware of the world’s needs. It does not hold the world at arm’s length.
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
I consider myself a man of solitude, even more-so over the past few years. Some of that is due to a practice of prayer, silence, meditation, photography, a need for connection to nature and maturity through life experiences. One grandson calls me a hermit but mostly because I have a simple life, less attachment to things than he does.
My solitude does not alienate me from some of the brokenness within the world. There are ways to keep abreast of world situations without sitting in front of a television or having our face glued to the news feed on our phones. Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of all the above. I’m finding ways to stay actively connected to the world, find solitude and not be alienated from the world.
We are a part of all creation, not apart from. Wayne Teasdale says to experience solitude as a mystic or monk in the world and not be alienated from it is to be “… engaged in the world and with others but not attached to the world’s greed, indifference, insensitivity, noise, confusion, pettiness, unease, tension and irreverence.” I may be more aware of the worlds needs than I have ever been and always a part of it.
“Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
“Love is not just something that
happens to you… it is a certain
special way of being alive. Love
is, in fact, an intensification of
life, a completeness, a fullness,
a wholeness of life.” Thomas Merton
Today is my sister’s birthday! Don’t let her know how I see her as a gift to us because it will go to her head! Have a super Awesome day! I 
you, Marcee!
When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashõ we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of cosmic dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
“The artist has no obligation to make his meaning immediately clear to anyone who does not want to make an effort to discover it.”
Thomas Merton
“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.”
Thomas Merton
We had a dusting of snow yesterday evening and temperature is at 17 degrees this morning. Good morning for coffee. They had freshly made chocolate eclairs in the display but I kept my wallet in my pocket and calories off my waist. I’m calling that progress.
“A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.” Thomas Merton