Shining Like the Sun

Years ago I read everything I could get my hands on by Thomas Merton. Yesterday in my devotions I came across a quote that I remember reading of his and that I often found myself turning back to read again and again. Merton was a monk (there's a long very interesting story about all of that) -- and a Trappist monk at that. Mostly he lived in community at Gethsamene Abbey in Kentucky. In one of his journals he has the following entry from a trip into Louisville.

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of separate holy existence is a dream...

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake...

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

There are no strangers!

If only we could see each other [as we really are]...all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other...

The gate of heaven is everywhere."

This morning I had breakfast with a friend and she was talking about the blessings that were blossoming all around her, in her community and in her life, and how she was so frustrated at the inability of others to recognize that and build on it. She talked about an organization that we are both familiar with that has done a lot of good across the years, but can't quit living in the past, so it's really not doing anything in the present (except spinning its wheels -- and wasting good people). They can't see what is right in their hands -- the energy, the passion, the dedication of themselves and others.

And while that is true, it is also true that there are many who are noticing the abundance and acting on it.

It also made me think of a meeting I had yesterday with Roger and Barb who are helping prepare for the Broadway Homecoming this October 14th and 15th (consider this a shameless plug). There they were talking about the rich history of our congregation and celebrating that -- but also talking about their excitement and good feeling about the present and future of Broadway.

I am grateful every day for the people that I share my life with and the place in which I am. I feel a bit like Merton speaks about. I feel that way about Kathy, and Conor and Jordan...I feel that way about the congregation in which I serve and the neighbors around our home and church building. I feel that my cup runneth over.

I met with my friend Darren today. And to tell the truth I spent some of the time complaining. I was complaining about the bureaucracy of our denominational conference. It seems to me to be so wedded to both incompetence and stupidity that my frustration boiled over. And yet when I think about it I think about what good colleagues I have -- like Darren and others around town and around the country. I think about the good lay folks I know in our own congregation and the many others around our city -- and I realize, again, our cup runneth over. I wish the leaders in our annual conference could see what Merton saw that day -- what the people of Broadway see, what the people of this neighborhood know -- that our cup runneth over, and that each face we pass is shining like the sun.