Dan Gilliam: Current Meanderings

Sitting Through The Suffering – Jan. 3, 2010

“The most usual entrance to contemplation is through a desert of aridity in which, although you see nothing and feel nothing and apprehend nothing and are conscious only of a certain interior suffering and anxiety, yet you are drawn and held in this darkness and dryness because it is the only place in which you can find any stability and peace. As you progress, you learn to rest in this arid quietude, and the assurance of a comforting and mighty presence at the heart of this experience grows on you more and more, until you gradually realize that it is God revealing Himself to you in a light that is painful to your nature and to all its faculties, because its purity is at war with your own selfishness and darkness and imperfection.” - Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island, pp. 275-276

Anyone who has ever attempted meditation, centering prayer, or sitting in intentional silence or stillness in any form understands the “interior suffering [...]

“In the language of the monastic fathers, all prayer, reading, meditation and all activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and of our situation as willed by Him. It means the renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God’s will as it comes to us in the difficult demands of life in its exacting truth. Purity of heart is then correlative to a new spiritual identity – the ‘self’ as recognized in the context of realities willed by God. Purity of heart is the enlightened awareness of the new man, as opposed to the complex and perhaps rather disreputable fantasies of the ‘old man’.
Meditation is then ordered to this new insight, this direct knowledge of the self in its higher aspect.”
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, p. 68

This concept of purity of heart as engaged through the process of “old [...]

It has been almost two years since my life took a twisted turn I didn't see coming. No need for undue concern (unless I am buried under a mountain of denial) as I have continued to practice the spiritual program of action that has allowed God to carry me for over 20 years. Apparently, I took the turn with at least one wheel on the ground and am gaining some momentum towards some sort of normalcy. All evidence points to the facts of my continued recovery and usefulness to God and my fellows. My creative flow, however, was severely interrupted and in particular my desire (and need) to write for publication. I feel this involuntary hiatus may be drawing to a close as I sense an inner itch to write. Time will tell if I have anything to say, but for now I want to raise up a flag and announce my intentions to get back to regular reflections on life, love, and the trudge of happy destiny (or "density" as George McFly would say). Many advance thanks to whoever might take the time to read this. [...]