My lovely wife sent me away to the Benedictine monastery of St. Leo Abbey for a weekend retreat for my birthday. It was good to get away and have some alone time with my God. At the same time nothing can make you more spiritually squirmy than an extended period of silence & solitude. I enjoyed hanging out with the monks for prayers and meals, but the rest of the time it was just me, my thoughts and the Ancient of Days.
I got some good reading done. I finished off A Short History of the Mass by Alfred McBride, and How to be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job by Brother Benet Tvedten. I took some great pictures--you can see them here. I got in some good prayer time & received some ministry from a Korean Benedictine priest who lives the monastic life in a small, one road central Florida town. I meditated on the prayer below by Thomas Merton.
With so many things up in the air right now--and only some that I can share with more than a select few--I found this prayer particularly timely. I did get some things settled and reconnected with an important part of who I am that will shape who I will be. There are still some unanswered questions and uneasy discussions to come, but I am finding more peace along the way.
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 understand myself.
And the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have the 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 troubles alone.
(from Thoughts in Solitude)
2 comments:
Good stuff Tom. So good you got to be there for that time. I'll continue to pray for you. Grace and Peace be with you.
Couple years ago a story in the media how girls in Bayview-Hunter's Point were going into puberty at a progressively younger age, as young as age 7.
A very bad sign::::Early cut-off. It draws the boys attention and they subsequently make sexual mistakes, very similar to what typical people experience nearly a decade later.
When they "turn" people on and start telepathically talking to them with this technology is very similar::The end of their chance. They segment families, convince them "earning" is the way, etc.
I tell people to examine the change between when they were children and after they began to hear. It is the difference between good and evil.
I understand people's confusion:::They literally hear "God" in their head, as opposed to what was taught to them in some church's classroom. But this technology is one of the God's tools, and much like their other tools, clone hosts and prophets, they use them as temptation.
They didn't begin speaking to me until I began working for ownershit group. "You went to work for evil." "And you were punished."
They began talking to these kids long before puberty, long enough for first-born son to become corrupted and throw away his good looks when punished.
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