This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is an act of love for this unseen person, who, in the very gift of love by which we surrender ourselves to his reality also makes his presence known to us.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the profound nature of surrender as an act of love for a deeper spiritual connection.
Thomas Merton reflects on the concept of total surrender as not just a mental exercise, but a genuine act of love towards an unseen presence or reality. He suggests that through this surrender, individuals can truly experience and recognize the presence of this entity, fostering a deeper connection that transcends mere intellectual understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about spirituality and personal growth, one might quote Merton to highlight the importance of surrendering to love.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
For years your name never passed my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, all that was uttered in my presence respecting you.
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.
A house without a cat is like a day without sunshine, a pie without fromage, a dinner without wine.
Oh, why was he so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and poetry and things that interested her not at all - and yet so desirable?
While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her – for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil.
For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.
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