A Tombstone Hand and a Graveyard Mind...

After my evening meditation, I read a piece from Merton's journals. The date of the piece was September 7, 1958, a time when he was not so rigid and tenuous as he seems to have been when he first arrived at the monastery 17 years earlier. At the same time he is clearly not as open and free as he would become before his death ten years later.

The piece also comes a day after he spent time with old friends, being a little bold, adventuring out from the monastery and clearly feeling a sense of some of what he missed from his old life. 

"I fear to be content with what I have - I fear it is inglorious.  In the last few days I have seen what matters is to be humble enough to admit that I am content with just this..."

It strikes me this evening like the whack of a shovel across the top of my head (an experience I am familiar with), commanding me to look straight into the darkness between Merton's "contentment" (or attempt at it) and my own contentment played out against my deep desire to be more, do more, have more, live more. 

I tilt back and forth on the fulcrum I have set for myself, yearning for  new growth and new ways of being, but also afraid, as Merton, to be either content, and/or not content, with what I have.  Afraid of the stretch to something new... Terrified of remaining in one place.

My mind, and my spirit, ask a question about intention and the road ahead... "What is it that you're looking for? Why do you want it?"

Or as the old song goes... "Who Do You Love?"