Rhythm

“If we want something, we easily persuade ourselves that what we want is God’s will just as long as it turns out to be difficult to obtain. What is easy is my own will: what is hard is God’s will. If I happen to desire something hard to get, it means that I want to sacrifice myself to do God’s will… And because we make fetishes out of difficulties we sometimes work ourselves into the most fantastically stupid situations, and use ourselves up not for God but for ourselves. We think we have done great things because we are worn out… Something has been achieved.…

You have made my soul for Your peace and Your silence, but it is lacerated by the noise of my activity and my desires. My mind is crucified all day by its own hunger for experience, for ideas, for satisfaction. And I do not possess my house in silence. But I was created for Your peace and You will not despise my longing for the holiness of Your deep silence.” Thomas Merton, Day Unto Day

We all seek You. We attempt to find You in other people, because this is how love is made concrete, in our relationships with one another. And yet, if we don’t have that same intentional, intimate time with You, we’ll still yearn for our heart’s deep fulfillment. The first step in loving relationship is learned in this world, but that is our baby step. We become marathon runners as we train ourselves to love You fiercely- with our minds, our bodies, and our spirits… both in our activity and in our rest.

Matthew 2:9-12 “After their audience with the king, [the Magi] set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. They they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

There is a rhythm we must honor as we enter into intimate relationship with You – activity, rest, and surrender. We fiercely offer love in our lives, and then we embrace Your grace. We sit and surrender all we’ve done and bask in the peace of being with You. We become filled with Your superabundance. And then we are restored so we can give again…but always from our overflow so that we, too, can be overjoyed as we follow Your guiding light.