Thomas Merton Quotes

Ahanu

Ahanu

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Just saw another quote from Thomas Merton on my Facebook feed. "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." My first time hearing about Thomas Merton was when I watched the Pope's speech in the United States Congress.

Anyway, just wanted to change the tone in the Christian forum since there has been a lot of criticism of Christianity lately. I'm also interested in learning more about this Merton guy. He seems interesting enough. Are there any other notable quotes? I was listening to another podcast on On Being a few days ago, and they provided another good quotable from Merton about vocations which is still resonating with me right now:

"Why do we spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be? If only we knew what we wanted. Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”

Commentary:

FR. MARTIN: Yeah, that's the line that changed my life, really, and I just thought, well, why? [laughs] Why am I doing that?

MS. TIPPETT: Mm-hmm.

FR. MARTIN: And it felt like he was speaking directly to me. And I felt like, you know, business is a real vocation for a lot of people. And it just wasn't for me. And I was miserable. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I didn't know how I could find a way out. And that sentence, which really was like a thunderbolt, just prompted me to shake things up and ask myself that question. And I always say to young people, what would you want to do if you could do anything that you could do? It's a very clarifying question for people. And, you know, Jesus asks people that. What do you want?

MS. TIPPETT: Mm-hmm.

FR. MARTIN: Kind of understanding your desires. So, yeah, I love that paragraph. I go back to it a lot.

MS. TIPPETT: I think something that really runs through all your writing is that callings and vocation as opposed to a mere career is not something that's restricted to monastics.

FR. MARTIN: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely or priests or sisters or brothers.

MS. TIPPETT: Mm-hmm.

FR. MARTIN: Everyone has a vocation. I mean, the most fundamental vocation is to become the person whom God created. And it's both the person you already are, and the person that God calls you to be. And I think we find that out through our desires. What moves us. What touches us, what are we drawn to? And part of that's career. But, only part of it. I mean, it's really who you are called to be, and that's why that question really spoke to me. But yeah, there's a popular misconception that having a quote unquote vocation means that you have to be a priest or a sister or a brother. But a vocation is your deepest identity, and as well, being called to married life, or being a lawyer, or...
Click to expand...

TRANSCRIPT FOR JAMES MARTIN — FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS​
 
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To answer your question.... You just fond a very prolific Christian author who has been quoted hundreds if not.thousands of times...enjoy
 
Ahanu said:
"Why do we spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be? If only we knew what we wanted. Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”
Click to expand...
That's the way I use to feel every morning, bumper to bumper with my fellow motorist struggling to get to a place on time that I truly despised. I often glanced at the people in the other cars and wondered how many of them felt the same way...
 
Ahanu said:
"Why do we spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be? If only we knew what we wanted. Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”
Click to expand...

Being mindful. Not an easy task with so many forces within and without pulling us in so many directions. It's like canoeing in a river. One can let the current take you where it goes, or you can paddle to your own destination.
 
Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
Ellen DeGeneres
 
One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 
wil said:
One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Click to expand...

Thanks for introducinfg me to Ella. I have ordered a bpook of her poems.
 
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