In a cemetery behind Gethsemani Abbey, there is one grave that has a scarf laid across it. It is also the only grave that contains a body in a casket. The monastery owns one casket that is used for all monks as they lay in state. When the bodies are buried, they are lowered into the grave without a casket and a white cloth is placed over their faces. This single grave was special, of course, not only because there was a casket in it, but because of who it contained.
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Merton’s Ghost
Posted in Uncategorized with tags divine hours, gethsemani abbey, monks, prayer, thomas merton on November 23, 2015 by thecrossingchicagoPrayers in the Grotto
Posted in Uncategorized with tags gethsemani abbey, grotto, poetry, prayers, thomas merton on November 23, 2015 by thecrossingchicagoAs I was hiking over the land at Gethsemani Abbey where Thomas Merton was a monk, I came across a small shed with prayers tacked to the wall and ceiling. I obviously did not expect to find it in the middle of the woods, but I was deeply moved by the heartfelt longings that filled the space.
Prayers in the Grotto
They were not mere verses penned on a whim.
They were not the simple obligation to write something when presented with paper.
They were heartfelt pleas to the universe. Legitimate questions to the essence and core
of all being. Not rhetorical, but genuinely and desperately seeking an answer.
They were the same laments that had followed their authors
everywhere they went.
The inescapable pleas for a sign, for hope, for healing that had not yet found their way home.
These were the cries that had been hurled into the wind that now hung heavily in that grotto
like a dark damp cloth wretchedly in need of sunlight and fresh air to dry and breathe and be.
Their words, our words.
The supplications of those whose God is so near as to seem absent.
The awareness of how a simple “I love you” or “You’re good enough” or “I affirm you” can be
the very voice of God to those who need it.
Curled up pieces of paper and freshly written ones hanging from the walls and ceiling with longing
and expectation that God will actually peer in and read them.
May those prayers find their way out through the cracks
and float freely in the light of a new morning;
finding their way back to the hearts from whose lips they were uttered.
May they be blessed by that light who turns sorrow into joy, sadness into laughter.
– Brandyn Simmons