No room at the inn

Into this world, this demented inn
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ comes uninvited.

But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it,
and yet he must be in it,
His place is with the others for whom
there is no room.

His place is with those who do not belong,
who are rejected by power, because
they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited,
who are denied status of persons,
who are tortured, bombed and exterminated.

With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in this world.
– Thomas Merton

We can build walls, we can arm soldiers, we can dispatch drones, and we can spread hate – all with alarming ease, almost as simple as asking Siri or Alexa to carry out our will.  That is one thing about voice activated technology that alarms me, we might believe ourselves to be more omnipotent that our inflated egos already do believe. Simply saying “do this” or “change that” to an inanimate object and having it carried out is chilling to me.

We can never truly lock love out, and of that I am

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A Perfect and Generous Love – a guest post

Today’s post comes to us from guest blogger and first time contributor to our blog, Susan Francesconi of The Good Disciple. We welcome her with great joy!

March 4, 2016: Friday of The Third Week Of Lent

It happens every year about this time, give or take a couple of weeks. Of course, I am talking about the midpoint of Lent, but I’m also talking about the change of seasons. Lent, like spring, is a time of conversion, of reawakening, of planting new seeds, of grace-filled turnings, returnings, and reconciliations.

Around the fourth week of our Lenten practice, new spiritual growth emerges like tender buds urged on by shortened nights. We carefully push back the winter mulch and beckon the sun’s warming rays.

This morning as I walked my dog, a neighbor who I pass every day remarked: “you look happy this morning.” He was right; I know I had joy written all over my face. The birds seemed to chant, Come out! Come out! Squirrels giddily complied, springing crazily from tree to tree, dropping to the ground, and diving in and out of unraked leaves. I spied a family of eight wild turkeys jauntily making their way up a neighbor’s drive. Upon my return I searched the back of my garden for surprises, something I do every morning now. Two days ago I noticed a few snowdrops pushing through the mulch; today I saw hundreds waving their happy little heads in the breeze.

On days like this, when

Sprouting and blooming – some thoughts on Thomas Merton

Today we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thomas Merton’s birth.

Many years ago, when I first returned to church, I – like many others – read his landmark work, The Seven Storey Mountain.  This book moved me in many ways, including to being the catalyst to get me out of my “God’s-only-up-there” piety and into a faith where my feet were firmly planted on the ground.

There are many gifts that God has given to me through Merton and his work, but today, I am grateful that it was the beginnings of a more integrated life of faith that the book shaped in me. And trust me, that seed was planted in 1990, but has taken many years to start to sprout, and even more years to bloom.

And with feet on the ground, those seeds are still sprouting, still blooming.

Thomas Merton, pray for us!

If I give too much to God…

Today’s Gospel from Luke shows us Jesus saying:

Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Which made me think of Thomas Merton wrote:

If we do not pray, it is because we sometimes hold superstitions, one form being this: if I give myself up too much to God, God will give me something hard which I cannot do.  

God very clearly gives us something hard to do. Jesus