Day 106l: An ode to monuments & gaps … (July 29, 2019)
“There is always a temptation to get spiritually lost in the contemplative life, bowing to the far tinier statues of ‘wisdom’ or ‘salvation’ or ‘enlightenment.’ Similarly there is always an enormous temptation in all the other facets of life to get similarly lost – focusing on tiny friends and tiny comforts and tiny successes and tiny adventures, instead of engaging Life’s weightier worths: sacrifice and service and caring and kindness. And if we, like so many others, do slip into the former vapidness – life becomes weak and thin and brittle, and all our joys & merits along with it; until one day we are left stranded in a miasma of despairing self-consciousness; a place where refuse to believe that any other way is available, and sink instead into fits of sulking rage. Well I won’t have it! The world is wilder and more wondrous than that in all its directions, more extravagant and delightful and bright. And all we need to do to remember the same is to first set forth into the unknown – and then set aside the self for any & all met along the way. So go up into the gaps, my friends – the encounters where beauty is undeniable and the soul of stars pierces all veils of wood and flesh. Stalk these gaps between what is and you have been taught &/or even what seems to be. Stalk them and find them and then squeak into their holier spaces. Find the gaps in the Universe and choose to go & live there.” ~ inspired by Thomas Merton & Annie Dillard
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