Thomas Merton

pierces to the core again. A friend recently sent on this quote from the end of "Seven Storey Mountain" ... time to reread the book.

"In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going. In another sense we have already arrived.

We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the Light.

But--oh!--how far I have to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!

For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring any other man on this earth into the cloud where I dwell in Your light, that is, Your darkness, where I am lost and abashed. I cannot explain to any other man the anguish which is Your joy, nor the loss which is the possession of You, nor the distance from all things which is the arrival in You, nor the death which is the birth in You because I do not know anything about it myself, and all I know is that I wish it were over--I wish it were begun.
You have contradicted everything. You have left me in no-man’s land."
-- Seven-Storey Mountain