Knowing God...?

This Sunday morning, while waiting in the silence of my room... I am pick up Merton and touched by the passage in his 'Thoughts in Solitude;;;

Knowing God…?

People have many and differing perception of God… Even in my own life, I can discern traces of these many and differing gods.. the god in my youth; the god as a young man; the god of my adult life… and now in my senior years… I am finding Merton’s Prayer: ‘Thou Art Not as Have Conceived Thee… revealing a new understanding of God that is not like all the previous ones…

“Lord, it is nearly midnight and I am waiting for You in the darkness and the great silence.

I am sorry for all my sins.

Do not let me ask any more than to sit in the darkness and light no lights of my own, and be crowded with no crowds of my own thoughts to fill the emptiness of the night in which I await You.

In order to remain in the sweet darkness of pure faith, let me become nothing to the pale, weak light of sense.

As to the world, let me become totally obscure from it forever.

Thus through the darkness, may I come to your brightness at last.

Having become insignificant to the world, may I reach out towards the infite meanings contained in your peace and your glory.

Your brightness is my darkness.

I know nothing of you and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing you.

If I imagine you, I am mistaken.

If I understand you, I am deluded.

If I am conscious and certain I know you, I am crazy.

Darkness is enough.”

(Thomas Merton, OCSC)