A Touch of Merton, More of What I See

First, and quickly, Thomas Merton's Praying The Psalms is an excellent companion and makes perfect sense. I recommend it to anyone who is open to an intelligent and compassionate discussion of the subject.

If I had this book to write, I would want to go a step further away from the well-worn practice of employing the psalms for this or that situation as one perceives distress, etc. in one's own life. I find that the psalms have nothing to do with me as I understand myself in this world. Rather, and as Merton affirms, they make me better suited to love of God. And, one finds oneself at times in step with Jesus Christ, and with other believers, so that the great commandments of love are put into action. This seems to me to be all the purpose required for one's understanding and enjoyment and consolation, never mind this psalm for that personal affliction.

But, onto ostensibly more personal matters.

I am behind on writing about three visions. What other word? I close my eyes and pray and see things. So, visions.

I asked Mary for insight into who she is to us, and the lights behind my eyelids took the form of several pairs of perfectly formed female breasts. Well, there’s my religion, I thought. There’s the message. No ifs about it. Mother to us all. Got it. Thank you.

On another night, I prayed to know the Holy Spirit. I saw light take shape in a rapid succession of forms. Fire and faces. Shifting shapes. Some recognizable, others not. The overall sense was “organic” inasmuch as the shapes changed, or morphed. But then, there was scission. Difference. A kind of time blip of step, or distinction. One. One. One. Not many, but one. Then one. Then one. I may have seen two dozen or fifty forms. I tired before my eyes did, or what passed before my inner eye.

Just recently, and I forget the context or prayer, I saw the lid of a coffin, quilted, and a face escaping horizontally, skeletal (skullular {is that a word?}) trailing smoke or fire, or maybe it was just the trail of movement. I have wondered, was this an image of my death? If so, I will live to a distressingly old age. Lord, I’m not sure you are listening! The horizontal movement indicates as much – i.e., purgatorial, not heaven-ward.

How not. Ah, I am not a saint. I have thrown all my spiritual chips into loving God and doing everything I can to love others, but in fact I am a poor agent on my own behalf. I simply cannot rely on myself to know the best way to be merely me, or whatever part of me makes the letters appear like so, and so, on paper and computer screen. I ask myself, why am I confused where to write; what is my confusion? I circulate in public. I like the open-ended humanity, the music and the air of nothing being done of any particular worth. The meadow of the honest writer, perhaps – or this writer being honest, perhaps, with what he does.

So why does God allow me to see things? I don't know. How would I? One might as well ask, why does one exist in the first place. I do grateful. I don’t do doubt, except to wonder about myself and why I do what I do. After 54 years I have no perfect answers or absolute positions, excpet with respect to love of God and others. If anything, the answers are fewer and certainly less...hmmm, concrete. However, I can't allow myself to continue to apply this dis-knowledge to myself. I need to recognize who I am, what I need, and to act on my own behalf. If anything, this will help me to see more clearly others' needs, if not the will of God.

Thank you for reading.