Thomas Merton saves the day (again)

"The only unhappiness," Thomas Merton wrote, "is not to love God."

I'm reading Merton's Dialogues with silence in preparation for a Contemplative Prayer session I'm offering this week. For several days now, I've entered into a time of unrest and anxiety, which relates to the imminent sabbatical of my rector -- and my stepping into his role (all the while running my own race in our lovely, crazy church). Merton calms the madness. His words jump from the page to my ears like notes played in perfect tune:

O flaming Heart,
Unseen and unimagined in this wilderness,
You, You alone are real, and here I've found You.
Here will I love and praise You in a tongueless death,
Until my white devoted bones,
Long bleached and polished by the winds of this Sahara,
Relive at Your command,
Rise and unfold the flowers of their everlasting spring.

(from Dialogues, p. 7)