Monday, March 26, 2007

Merton on "I" Sight


MY LORD GOD,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think
that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.


But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen.

Oh, how I love him.

Is the Cistercian Abbey in Wisconsin Trappist, or is there a difference. Honestly, I AM that stupid.
:-)

Phil B. said...

Trappists are a variety (the predominant one at this point in history) of Cistercians. The other, smaller group is the Order of Cistercians of the Common Observance. This is the affiliation of Sparta. What was true 2-3 generations ago was that Trappists favored a more radically severe interpretation of the rule of Benedict and the intent of the Cistercian founders. But that is no longer true, in most cases. In fact, they have been talking, talking, talking about re-unification, but Fr. Bernard tells me that its still a ways off. They remind me of hobbits- always talking, never doing. :-)