Nature resonated throughout the evening's discussions. It started in Holy Listening with my expressing the experience of peace and joy I got from having my attention captured by a dog in a car that was stopped at a red light next to me. I was captured by how the dog was completely present to and delighted by the sights, sounds and smells of nature around him. The attention to nature continued in the reflections of how some folks had been working in their gardens to pull out old tomato plants, which, when composted, would become the fertilizer for subsequent generations. This became an analogy for the love and lessons we pass down to others to help them grow. We talked about the beauty and simplicity found in God's creation. How in the midst of their just being, God appears to sustain the things of nature. Humanity and society has created a tremendous amount of complexity which requires a good bit of doing on our part which tends to distract us from simply being. As we talked about prayer, many reflected on their deepest experience of (Contemplative) prayer as being in nature and connected to God through it or to working in a garden and aware of the presence of God. This evening's sentiments were reminiscent of Session 4 from the Spring 2014 Merton Contemplative Living Series entitled 'Living in Solitude and In Silence." One participant in that session was particularly moved by the following lines from Another Voice written by David Steindl-Rast - Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute:
When I remember my last visit with Thomas Merton I see him standing in the forest, listening to the rain. Much later, when he began to talk, he was not breaking the silence, he was letting it come to word. And he continued to listen. “Talking is not the principal thing” he said.
This participant used the phrase the liturgy of nature to describe the image invoked by these words. It was as if the way Merton observed and spoke was in harmony (letting silence come to word) with the great mystery of nature which he had become a part of and which was in full and natural reverence to God's presence.
We also spent time talking about the real difficulty in simplifying our lives is letting go of our attachments (to fears, to memories/sentiments, to other things that define us). We made the comparison to Contemplative prayer which requires us to let go of our attachments to doing (actively praying) and simply allowing ourselves to be in God's presence. We discussed that the grace God gives us as we age is that we are forced to simplify more and more as we ultimately come to the state of just being. At the end of our lives our attachments to the things of our lives and to the activity of our prayers are let go and we are left in a state of just being before God.
When I remember my last visit with Thomas Merton I see him standing in the forest, listening to the rain. Much later, when he began to talk, he was not breaking the silence, he was letting it come to word. And he continued to listen. “Talking is not the principal thing” he said.
This participant used the phrase the liturgy of nature to describe the image invoked by these words. It was as if the way Merton observed and spoke was in harmony (letting silence come to word) with the great mystery of nature which he had become a part of and which was in full and natural reverence to God's presence.
We also spent time talking about the real difficulty in simplifying our lives is letting go of our attachments (to fears, to memories/sentiments, to other things that define us). We made the comparison to Contemplative prayer which requires us to let go of our attachments to doing (actively praying) and simply allowing ourselves to be in God's presence. We discussed that the grace God gives us as we age is that we are forced to simplify more and more as we ultimately come to the state of just being. At the end of our lives our attachments to the things of our lives and to the activity of our prayers are let go and we are left in a state of just being before God.
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