
RIP Thomas Merton! Your journals inspire me. Your life challenges me. Your hermitage is he one place I want to visit!
Nothing happening here, move on.
RIP Thomas Merton! Your journals inspire me. Your life challenges me. Your hermitage is he one place I want to visit!
No person is ever an object!
Every person should be treated like a person who is loved not an object. No person is ever an object.
I have not written in a while which is completely my fault. Not that I have nothing to say – some may suggest I have too much to say – but I have not had the energy.
I have been having the most interesting and “edifying” conversation with a person on Instagram. It has centred on a book, The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context, by Myron Penner. It might be described as an attempt to give a Kiergaardian interpretation of modern apologetics. Of course, the book is about much more – the modern epistemological paradigm among others.
I am not the person to give a “book review” so I will not. The book has struck me as simply using SK’s categories to show the flaws of the modern Christian approach to life. It was an interesting read; but the book is not for everyone. Yet I am always edified by a person’s serious wrestling and this book is that.
Anyway …
SK was confirmed in this church.
And he later preached there. I wonder if he used that pulpit?
A little about the church, in English, from the website.
I have been reading and thinking about SK’s (in)famous journal entry for 1 August 1835. Especially this image:
What use would it be if truth were to stand there before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I acknowledged it or not, inducing an anxious shiver rather than trusting devotion?
Journals 1835 (1:19)
Truth calls for personal involvement, not detached reflection. But …
The Truth is a trap: you cannot get hold of it without getting caught; you cannot get hold of the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.
Journals 1854 (10:17)
Truth calls for passivity in a world of activity. Truth confronts with possibility.
Truth/Jesus does not play our games. He is not limited by us or our thinking. And that is why God needed to become a person – Jesus is so much more than we can imagine, Jesus does not fit neatly into a box.
This crucifix has been with me for a long time. The story is that my maternal grandmother, with whom I spent the first 6 years of my life, found the crucifix while escaping from Poland at the beginning of the World War 2. It hung next to her bed until I inherited it.
I assume it was part of a monastic habit – or I hope it was. It was on the altar when I said Mass as a priest. And is now on my desk where I write. I sometimes wonder about its origin. Yet above all it is the emotional attachment that makes it special.
This is the traditional hymn for Compline. I was thinking about it before. I have always liked the melody.
I was think, in fact, that I should start praying the Office again. Maybe start with Compline?! The 1928 Prayer Book has a nice version. Maybe tonight!?
I am starting a new “category” on the blog – Dear Jesus. More of journal type thing rather than a blog/discussion.