Observe without ceasing

Now that my Bible study crew has wrapped up for the school year, I’ve picked up My Sweetie’s Pocket Thomas Merton. He got it in his Christmas stocking one year; I suspect he hasn’t gotten to it yet.
In the foreword, the editor encourages one to read along until something sticks. It seems an interesting method for tackling a Major Christian Thinker, but it works strangely well for me. Today’s snag:

The monk is precisely a man who has no specific task. He is liberated from the routines and servitude of organized human activity in order to be free. Free for what? Free to see, free to praise, free to understand, free to love.
–Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action, 228

Son of a gun, I’ve not thought about my days like this before!

I mean, I keep complaining about how I have so little structure it quickly approaches zero. And I keep complaining that I don’t understand what my God-inflected, Spirit-guided writing life is Supposed to Be Like, that I want a roadmap for What I’m Doing.

At the same time, this is what I cherish about my current days: I’m free. Free to listen and chat with A for the sudden hour she showered me with. Free to gather a bundle of nutgrass (and consign it to the compost pile). Free to establish a window of order in the “early reader” section of the children’s room in the library.

I do like being aware and present in all God’s moments. I see I will be wise to remember to mindfully cherish this gift.

Maybe later I’ll cross-link to the Abbey of the Arts and their Monk in the World material. (Now it’s later!)

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