Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, (New York: New Directions, 1960) p. 43.
A brother came to Abbot Pastor and said: Many distracting thoughts come into my mind, and I am in danger because of them. Then the elder thrust him out into the open air and said: Open up the garments about your chest and catch the wind in them. But he replied: This I cannot do. So the elder said to him: If you cannot catch the wind, neither can you prevent distracting thoughts from coming into your head. Your job is to say No to them.
3 comments:
We can’t control our thoughts or emotions, but we can control how we respond to them. When we have the idea that we should be able to stop ourselves from having difficult thoughts and emotions, our failure can make us incredibly frustrated and angry at ourselves, even full of self-loathing. When we stop our futile attempts, then we have more energy for the tasks that we can actually do: offering up our thoughts and emotions to God and asking for help to know what to do with them and how we should behave. The No that we sometimes need to say to ourselves seems more gentle when it is not filled with anger and self-disgust, just a simple acknowledgement that all our wild and crazy thoughts do not need to be honored or acted upon.
Loving God, I offer you my thoughts and emotions and pray that you will hold me in your hand, leading and guiding me, helping me to act rightly, filled with a gentle spirit towards myself and others.
What a very comforting reading this is. Over many years I practice meditation so sporadically that my thoughts never quite go away, and that's OK. I can tell them No, simply.
Thank you, Lindsay, for this gentle reminder.
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