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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Tuesday, April 7, 2020

wilderness of compassion


What is my new desert?  The name of it is compassion.  There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion.  It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily.  It shall become a pool; it shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy.  It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water and the poor possess all things. [2]
                     Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and Writer, Ed.                              Jonathan Montaldo (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995) 463.
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I live in a desert
Really, I do

Ok, its HIGH desert
Which means it has a different kind of beauty
than other kinds of deserts

it is not full of sand
it is not totally barren

more rocks, and sagebrush
and juniper

and even mountains

but still the rains are infrequent
the dry spells long

I have been in many deserts
The Sahara with is dunes
The solid brown, rocky rubble of he Sinai
The rolling sage of the great basin (where I grew up)
And now the deceptive “kind of” desert
Of mountains and winding waters

And the desert is a special place
For in the openness
And the starkness

You come face to face with
Yourself

the noise is gone
the outside distractions are few

but the inside distractions
are many
in the desert my soul roils

I am confronted
Challenged
And I change,
Hopefully, I change
Grow
Blossom

Things do blossom in the desert

Sometime the deserts that confront us
Are not physical

Compassion can be a desert
Being in that empty arid place
That feels so empty and barren

Because you don’t want to be there
Because you want to be in the lush
Jungle of resentment
And anger

Because you want avoid
And protect (one’s self)
And not see
Not feel

Not ache for the pain of the other
Of the world

ah but when the spring of living water
gushes
and true compassion comes

one’s soul blossoms
and one opens up

to the freshness
the hope
the joy
the love

that comes from above

there are many deserts
not just compassion

illness, I suspect

forgiveness, perhaps
generosity
welcome

there are so many barren places
difficult, hard places

which, when watered
by Sacred

provide us with the opportunity
to blossom
if we will receive water from those hard places
and manna from on high

_______________________

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus,  it will burst into bloom;
    it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.  (Isaiah 35)

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