For most of my life I struggled as I grew up in a Catholic home. I can’t recall a Sunday that went by that I didn’t want to go to church. When I did it wasn’t for the mass or the readings; it was for the quiet and the solitude I found when everyone left. For years I searched for something that quenched my spiritual thirst and I found the answer in everything around me. My dad used to say to me, “God’s beauty is all around us. You just have to be open minded enough to see it when it’s presented to you.” What I learned was “He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.” From Thomas Merton’s “Choosing to Love the World.”
For the longest time I found my solitude in a Sunday morning kayak on the Niagara River with only the sound of the wind, the hull of my boat as it glided through the water and the gulls to keep me company. On other days it was a quiet morning of fly fishing. I never cared if I caught anything; that was a bonus, but the quiet of the morning, the steam rising off the water and the sound of my line as it flew overhead was enough to remind me of my father’s saying. When I was younger one of my favorite times of the day was Saturday and Sunday morning as I delivered the morning paper to my customers. I enjoyed the time alone and contemplated my life. That’s a lot for a 10 year-old to say but it was true. I have always thought about what I contributed to the goings on around me. I didn’t realize at the time how deep some of my thoughts were but I felt as though I were able to solve the world’s problems; or at least most of my own. I also enjoyed the times when my dad delivered the papers with me. We would walk and talk and for a few hours I wasn’t his little boy, I was his equal. I enjoyed those times.
Today I work hard every day to maintain a mindful balance in my life. There are times when that task is much more difficult and at times it even seems as though it will never be achieved. I am reminded daily of the need to stop and reflect. To reflect on myself and what I contribute to the world. My daily task is to cultivate mindful presence.
I also found that solitude with my children, especially when they were small. If you truly want to see God’s work, watch a small child play. Look into their eyes and see the innocence of the unopened, unadulterated mind. As I write this I’m sitting in my car at the beach in Dunkirk, NY. I misread a meeting time and took advantage of the opportunity it presented to sit by the beach and listen to the gulls fight over their catch and watch the endless roll of the waves as they break on the beach. When I sit and watch such things the troubles facing us today like the economy easily fade away; even if for just a few minutes. I get lost in solitude, in silence, in my ability to contemplate the silence.
In his book “Choosing to Love the World,” Thomas Merton states, “We have more power at our disposal today than we have ever had, and yet we are more alienated and estranged from the inner ground of meaning and of love han we have ever been. The result of this is evident. We are living through the greatest crisis in the history of man; and this crisis is centered precisely in the country that has made a fetish out of action and has lost (or perhaps never had) the sense of contemplation. Far from being irrelevant, prayer, meditation and contemplation are of utmost importance in america today.” This from a man who wrote this book in the 1960′s. This doesn’t speak highly of the society we have developed since that time.
I honor the place in you that is the same in me. I honor the place in you where the whole universe resides. I honor the place in you of love, of light, of peace and of truth. I honor the place in you that is the same in me. There is but one. Namaste.
