Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.
Interpretation
Life is straightforward and profound, revealing the divine in everything around us.
In this quote, Thomas Merton emphasizes the simplicity and clarity of life, suggesting that the divine presence is constant and evident in our world. He urges us to recognize that this truth is not merely a metaphor but a fundamental reality that shapes our existence.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, I shared this quote to inspire others to find the divine in everyday life.
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.
History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.
Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.
A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.
Many introverts feel there's something wrong with them, and try to pass as extroverts. But whenever you try to pass as something you're not, you lose a part of yourself along the way. You especially lose a sense of how to spend your time.
Gods, religions and national boundaries are absolutely imaginary. They don't tend to exist. As soon as you pull back half a mile and look down at the Earth there are no national boundaries. There aren't even national boundaries when you get down and walk around. They're just imaginary lines we draw on maps. I just get fascinated by people who assume that things that are imaginary have no relevance to their lives.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.