Thursday, April 2, 2020

The Gate of Heaven

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal... A point from which God disposes our lives, a point which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.  This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.  It is, so to speak, God’s name written in us...

It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.  It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and a blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely...  I have no program for this seeing.  It is only given.  But the gate of heaven is everywhere.
                                                   Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
at
  • Familiar regrets
    In 2012, Australian caregiver Bronnie Ware wrote a book about her experiences in palliative care. There were five regrets that dying people ...
  • One way improvement
    The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.      Frank Herbert, ...
  • Poem: Happiness
    A state you must dare not enter    with hopes of staying, quicksand in the marshes, and all the roads leading to a castle    that doe...