this weekend has been deeply sad...my best friend's grandfather committed suicide on saturday...on the same day we found out that one of beau's favorite aunt and uncle split up...this coupled with the fact that i have two precious ones in the hospital with unrecognizable ailments...it has been a rough weekend.
keeping me aloft has been a book that i loved in seminary and have picked up again (i think an ex-boyfriend "borrowed" my former copy forever)....the wisdom of the desert: the sayings of the desert fathers translated by thomas merton...so for a few days and posts forgive me for including some beautiful glimpses into this text.
merton writes of the reasons to be set apart as "reject[ing] the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion in "the world." They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand. They sought a God whom they alone could find, not one who was "given" in a set, stereotyped form by somebody else [...] there was nothing to which they had to "conform" except the secret, hidden, inscrutable will of God which might differ very notably from one cell to another."
here are some of the thoughts from the desert fathers (more to come as i read further)....
Abbot Pastor said: If you have a chest full of clothing, and leave it for a long time, the clothing will rot inside it. It is the same with the thoughts in our heart. If we do not carry them out by physical action, after a long while they will spoil and turn bad.
One of the brethren had sinned, and the priest told him to leave the community. So then, Abbot Bessarion got up and walked out with him, saying: I too am a sinner!
