{"id":670,"date":"2014-08-15T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=670"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:50:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:50:19","slug":"august-15-thomas-merton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2014\/08\/15\/august-15-thomas-merton\/","title":{"rendered":"August 15 Thomas Merton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday before President\u2019s Convocation<\/p>\n

No post yesterday. \u00a0I and the other 21 members of our community who are here spent Wednesday afternoon and evening, as well as Thursday until mid-afternoon, at the Manresa Retreat Center on 16 Mile and Woodward. \u00a0That\u2019s been our custom at the beginning of the academic year for while & it did me lots of good, my fellow Jesuits too I think.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s post is a passage from the writings of Thomas Merton, a mystic whose roots in the hustling society of east coast America generated a mysticism tastes contemporary decade after decade even though he died too young, being accidentally electrocuted by faulty wiring in a fan. \u00a0As with many mystics, Merton writes in a language intimately close to atheism and to the mystery of an untamable God. \u00a0I think of him as close kin with Rabindranath Tagore. \u00a0Thousands of readers in what gets called Western culture and readers in Eastern culture as well find kinship with his writings. \u00a0I hope you find this not very well known quotation\u00a0a gift for the end of the work week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

p.s. \u00a0 I feel some completely unearned\u00a0proprietary rights because I happened to have been born on the same date that he died, December 10, 1968.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that 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 I will 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 perils alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 from Thoughts in Solitude<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Merton\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday before President\u2019s Convocation No post yesterday. \u00a0I and the other 21 members of our community who are here spent Wednesday afternoon and evening, as well as Thursday until mid-afternoon, at the Manresa Retreat Center on 16 Mile and Woodward. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":675,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}