More Merton

Clarence, D's much-loved cat, died last night and she wrote a lovely post about him entitled Dancing to the rhythm of life. I would like to offer D another excerpt from The Book of Hours that I quoted from yesterday, this time from New seeds of contemplation.

The world and time are the dance of the Lord
in emptiness.
The silence of the spheres is the music of
a wedding feast.

The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena
of life,
the more we analyse them out into strange finalities
and complex purposes of our own,
the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and
despair.

But it does not matter much,
because no despair of ours can alter the
reality of things,
or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always
there.

Indeed we are in the midst of it,
and it is in the midst of us,
for it beats in our very blood, whether we
want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose,
cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the
general dance

Happy dancing, D.