NSoC 33: Journey through the Wilderness

See Notes on this series...

The promised land waits for those who allow God to lead them through the wilderness without letting the hardships turn them aside.

Merton reiterates here that contemplation is not merely the absence of activity. Rest, passivity, and emptiness lead to a hunger and thirst for God but they are more than a dead mind and a petrified will or lazy prayer that "degenerate into torpor and sleep."

Merton points to the helpfulness of scripture and books to start the mind, as well as pictures, trees, "fields and hills."

Merton says there is no such thing as prayer "in which you do absolutely nothing." True prayer is a concentration on God, intent, absorbed. It may look inactive, but it is anything but. It is a journey, full of the risk of trust, for Merton says we must be willing to lay aside all in order to achieve joy.

Tomorrow, the last feast day of Lent. Palm Sunday. Hosanna! Holy Week and the last six chapters await. Til Monday.