The Rain And Thomas Merton

THE RAIN, THOMAS MERTON
AND MY SOUL

Thomas Merton understood the rain. He realized it nurtured rich and poor indiscriminately. Some of his greatest encounters with enlightenment were intertwined with the rain. Rain is universal. Merton knew further that salvation was universal. Salvation was a gift of grace and it fell on all just as the rain.

He saw the duty and destiny of man to be one of abandoning oneself to enlightenment. Man needed not to possess anything, he needed only to allow nothing to possess him. For Thomas Merton life was a dance in the rain. It was joy. It was an unrestrained search and it was a calm day listening to the soft sound of rain in the pines. No peaceful and sincere spiritual expression was exempt from its place at the dance or in the rain. Buddhism, Judaism, Islam & Sufism, Hinduism...all spiritual paths, fit within the peaceful and loving world sanctified by Thomas Merton's dance in the rain.

Father Merton understood that rain without man was merely just a scientific event...a function of physical factors. With man, rain became something to view with peace.

Contemplating the sound of rain caressing leaves brought comfort.

Rain tapping on the roof was the sound of God's fingers.

Viewing the tiny droplets hanging from myrtle seeds like so many tiny crystal balls was to appreciate creation.

Rain became a metaphor for all that is holy. Yes, Thomas Merton understood the rain. Even more than that, he understood the dance of enlightenment.

It was by a most circuitous route that I found the enlightenment of salvation and the salvation of enlightenment. My Christian friends will no doubt question my salvation because it was not painted by the numbers. And my Buddhist friends may well be skeptical about my enlightenment. It too, exists outside the lines. I have no doubts.

Along the way I have been both drenched and thrilled by the rain. In like manner the words of Thomas Merton have consoled me with the promise that it is all OK. His words have been like the soft rain that makes you wish to turn up your collar and walk. Walking in the rain brought me together with the most wonderful person I've ever met...yes, the rain changes lives and softens hearts. It teaches us to always search and question, to seek God in all things.

From Rain and the Rhinoceros: "The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer."

PAGE TWO...GETHSEMANI

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