[Propertalk] Oct 24

[Ann Fontaine]

from Suzanne Guthrie

http://edgeofenclosure.org/proper25c.html

Meditation One
dares to be ordinary

Asceticism is utterly useless if it turns us into freaks. The  
cornerstone of all asceticism is humility, and Christian humility is  
first of all a matter of supernatural common sense. It teaches us to  
take ourselves as we are, instead of pretending (as pride would have  
us imagine) that we are something better than we are. If we really  
know ourselves we quietly take our proper place in the order designed  
by God. And so supernatural humility adds much to our human dignity by  
integrating us in the society of other men and placing us in our right  
relation to them and to God. Pride makes us artificial, and humility  
makes us real. …

It is supreme humility to see that ordinary life, embraced with  
perfect faith, can be more saintly and more supernatural than a  
spectacular ascetical career. Such humility dares to be ordinary, and  
that is something beyond the reach of spiritual pride. Pride always  
longs to be unusual. Humility no so. Humility finds all its peace in  
hope, knowing that Christ must come again to elevate and transfigure  
ordinary things and fill them with His glory.

-Thomas Merton 1915-1968
No Man Is An Island


Meditation Two
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me

Then the old man crossed himself and spoke. "Thank God, my dear  
brother, for having revealed to you this unappeasable desire for  
unceasing interior prayer. Recognize in it the call of God, and calm  
yourself. Rest assured that what has hitherto been accomplished in you  
is the testing of the harmony of your own will with the voice of God.  
It has been granted to you to understand that the heavenly light of  
unceasing interior prayer is attained neither by the wisdom of this  
world, nor by the mere outward desire for knowledge, but that on the  
contrary it is found in poverty of spirit and in active experience in  
simplicity of heart. ..."

-The Way of a Pilgrim
trans. R.M.French

Meditation Three
the saint and the sinner

There was once a dervish devotee who believed that it was his task to  
reproach those who did evil things and to enjoin upon them spiritual  
thoughts, so that they might find the right path. [The dervish singled  
out a compulsive gambler, and each day the dervish placed a stone near  
the entrance of the house, to remind the gambler of his sin. The  
devotee enjoyed the pleasure of his 'Godliness' in recording the sins  
of his neighbor. This went on for twenty years.

Each day the gambler thought,] 'Would that I understand goodness! How  
that saintly man works for my redemption! Would that I could repent,  
let alone become like him, for he is sure of a place among the elect  
when the time of requital arrives!'

And so it happened that, through a natural catastrophe, both men died  
at the same time. An angel came to take the soul of the gambler, and  
said to him gently, 'You are to come with me to paradise.'

[The gambler protested, saying that the angel must have mixed up his  
instructions, for he learned that the devotee is destined for roasting  
on the fiery pit in hell.]

'Not so,' said the angel, 'as I shall explain to you. It is thuswise:  
the devotee has been indulging himself for twenty years with feelings  
of superiority and merit. Now it is his turn to redress the balance.  
He really put those stones on that pile for himself, not for you. …  
You are to be rewarded because, every time you passed the dervish, you  
thought first of goodness and secondly of the dervish. It is goodness,  
not man, which is rewarding you for your fidelity.'

-Idries Shah 1924-1996
Wisdom of the Idiots





The Rev. Ann Fontaine
Lander, Wyoming