Letter to a Young Activist
by Thomas Merton

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no worth at all, if not perhaps, results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but in the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too, a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an ideal, and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, and it gets more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.

Maria

I know little of Thomas Merton's works, other than that he was a highly respected Catholic writer (and a Trappist Monk, is that right?) - but I like the humanity in this passage. Especially in today's mass media circus, we tend to think that unless we can make sweeping changes in the world at large our activism is futile. But in reality, if we can bring just a bit more light to those around us, in our families and immediate circles, we have accomplished much.

One quote of his that I do remember hearing that has stuck with me is

quote:

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"Silence is our admission that we have broken communication with God and are now willing to listen."

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Love,
Greg

That's about all I know about him too, Greg. Do the Trappists take a vow of silence? Still, they must be praying all the time.

I got the letter out of the book Finding God in All Things, the Marquette University Student Prayer Book, that my Dad gave me. The Blake poem and Consumer's Prayer were in there too. There's also a Prayer for the Pope that talks about how the Pope has to consider people of all ethnicities and cultures around the globe and can only do so with God's help. It ends, "I pray that he listens to You closely, and I also pray that You listen to me before You speak to him. Amen." Giggle. I just find that so sweet.

Speaking of Linda Goodman and monks, lol... I'm enjoying how this new cycle of learning I'm in, like other light cycles I can recall, and unlike the darker, heavier Saturn cycle I'm emerging from, is connecting up so much of such various and sundry stuff. Like Linda Goodman and monks. I'll write you more on that one later.

Maria