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A Prayer of Thomas Merton

God, we have no idea where we are going.
We do notsee the road ahead of us.
We cannot know for certainwhere it will end.
Nor do we really know ourselves,and the fact that we think we are following your willdoes not mean that we are actually doing so.
But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And we hope we have that desire in all that we are doing.
We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire.
And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road, though we may know nothing about it.
Therefore, we will trust you always though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. We will not fear, for you are ever with us, and you will never leave us to face our perils alone.

Thoughts in Solitude, p. 83, adapted

How old are you anyway?

I went with Lealand to a Citadel Theatre production on Tuesday night with a group from his school. While we waited for the show to start, one of his teachers leaned over her seat to askme,"Have you hit the big 50 yet?"...I was shocked and must have looked it..."50...I am far away from that!". She looked stunned...I was stunned that she looked so stunned. I am 43. And as some recent comments suggested...I do not lie about my age. I was born in the spring of 1963. That was, for you history buffs, the year that JFK was murdered.

I suppose my premature grey is now taking on a more mature grey. And the years of stress and worry (remember I was a pastor! and a father of three!) have taken their toll...but for the record, I am only 43, the same age as Brad Pitt.

Seriously, there have been so many attempts to place me in some other age category that I will have to talk to my consultant and see what I can do about my image...I have never felt that I needed to lie about my age. Well maybe when I was 18 and the legal drinking age was 19. But besides that...did I mention I am only 43.

AIDS

Everywhere we went we were faced with four letters. The world AIDS conference had just closed as we arrived. Our first evening together as a team, we met with members of the gay community in a park dedicated as an AIDS memorial. Our host was tuned into the tremendous implications of a disease that hunts down and destroys all manner of women and men. His thoughtfulness gave me hope. I cannot say how many times in 10 days we faced the four letters, in the faces of those we talked to, fed, supported, hung out with. I can only tell you that it seemed to be everywhere, and like the proverbial elephant in the living room...we wanted to avoid it. Pain has a way of surfacing. The collective pain of those four letters, AIDS surfaces and the cry is only hindered by our desire to slam our hands over our ears, close our eyes and say, "I just can't think about it...I just can't"

Tiger by the tail

Daylight required him to retreat from the open fields and well travelled paths to a shaded spot beneath an ancient tree. The tiger did not seem to notice, his chosen resting place was not deep in a jungle, or rather it was deep in a jungle of a very different sort. The tiger lay down in the city park, too tired and disoriented to consider leaving. "I will rest, and move on when darkness falls again." He missed the certainty of his forest home. He longed for the deep blanket of green he know as a younger man. His home was far away, and if he had it to do over again, he often told others in the park, he never would have left. But he had beleived that it would be better, here. Easy hunting, plentiful food and shelter who could resist?

The coolness allowed some welcome relief from a night of moving in and out of shadow, hunting, searching, seeking and hiding. In the daylight, he could sleep, clean his wounds, allow the dryness of the air to dry his soiled feet and cracked skin. His coat, being thick and multilayered protected him from heat and cold. Its multicolored lines took on the rippling shadows of midday with a welcoming camoflage. In the relative safety of daylight, he at last could rest.

They saw him earlier in the day. His heaving breaths flailing limbs bore witness to the tiger's condition. They had water, they had money, they had what he needed. They had been told to try and find a tiger, talk to him, learn his name and if possible take him to a donut shop for coffee. They approached cautiously, none of them had ever spoken to a tiger...and they all knew that danger was present.

Along the street

"Why did you come?"

"I don't know, I am still trying to figure that out."

Walking up the street from the museum I found my way over to the Toronto City hall. It was a hot mid-summer day. There was a festival going on. "A Taste of" kind of festival. Tents with all kinds of food from every nation represented in the great city.

"What were you thinking? Did you think that it would be easy?"

"I thought it would be good for me. I thought I would discover things about myself. I guess that is kind of selfish...but I wanted to see, to see me in the midst of all of this."

Flowers bloomed, buildings seemed to burst out of the ground and under the streets the city moved on rails, sending gusts of hot air up through vents to the sweating streets above. My clothes stuck to me and I tried to imagine how I would endure this for ten days.

"You are 43. You won't be able to keep up. Look at you...always trying to be a teenager...don't you think it's time for you to grow up?"

I tried to imagine me, a 43 year old man, spending the week with a dozen or more highschool and junior highschool students. I tried to imagine myself sticky, hot, tired and crabby with a dozen or more highschool and junior highschool students. I was not trying to defeat myself before I started, I was just trying to see it unfold in my head.

"I am a little suprised by the dark feelings I am having. It is way to beautiful here for these gloomy thoughts"

"You think too much."

"I think a lot, that's true. But it is not thinking that is bringing the curtain down before I start. It is the seeing, the smelling, the tasting."

Darkness hung around the edges of this brilliant day. A picture is worth a thousand words they say. Fear, not a familliar emotion, presented a case to me as well.

"What do you have to offer in the face poverty, AIDS, sickness and homelessness? Who are you and what are you trying to prove? What if things get out of control, what do you really know about the heart of a city?"

Trip to the ROM

I had some time to kill and saw that the subway went direct to the Royal Ontario Museum. Well almost direct. I got a little lost...took some good pictures and then found my way in. The whole place was being renovated...so I am not sure I saw everything. I took tons of pictures...and then saw some poor tourist being told that taking pictures was strictly forbidden. I put my camera away....discreetly.

It was a strange immersion at the beginning of a our 10 days in Toronto. Our task, quest, goal was to work with three different churches in the inner city. We were not there to save the city, we were there to fit into what was already going on.

But before I get ahead of myself...let me say that the hour or so I was skulking around this world class museum I was overwhelmed with the physical manifestations of darkness.

I am not unappreciative of art. I am not the kind of guy that sees a demon behind every statue. The darkness I was perceiving was not that tangible. The darkness of mens' hearts, the darkness of a society that is full of itself, a darkness that fills a room with the same intensity and speed as light. More of this later...but darkness was never far away from my thoughts.

Welcome Back

I see it has been months since my last entry...my bad! Over the next few weeks I hope to enter a number of articles based on my summer travels. This year I have covered a lot of ground on both coasts and inbetween. If you are still hitting this site once in a while...thanks for hanging in there with me. Drop a comment and let me know what's up.

You might be wondering where I was. Well it went something like this. Early July...the West coast (see my last entry). August, 3 Days of work in Toronto, 10 days of working with some inner city churches in Toronto (with Tage) and then a 7 day adventure in Nova Scotia. Add to that some hot lazy days on the Pembina River, a few excursions to the beautiful province of Saskatchewan and a couple of days at home and you have a snapshot of my summer. Want more details...stay tuned