I got this quote in today’s mail from the Merton Institute and it really resonated for me. The second sentence here is right on target.

Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. If I were once to settle down and be satisfied with the surface of life, with its divisions and its clichés, it would be time to call in the undertaker. …So, then, this dissatisfaction which sometimes used to worry me and has certainly, I know, worried others, has helped me in fact to move freely and even gaily with the stream of life. My unspoken (or spoken) protests have kept me from clinging to what was already done with. When a thought is done, let go of it. When something has been written, publish it, and go on to something else. You may say the same thing again someday, on a deeper level. No one needs to have a compulsion to be utterly and perfectly “original” in every word he writes.

Thomas Merton. A Thomas Merton Reader. Thomas P. McDonnel, editor. New York: Doubleday, Inc., 1962:16

Division 290 Ship 11 enters

Friday Morning at 0900 the Pass in Review ceremony at Great Lakes Recruit Training Command began and after the preliminary review of colors and a short film about life in Boot Camp we got our first look at the graduates. My nephew’s unit,  Division 290 Ship 11 was the first to come marching into the drill hall. They looked great. A sharp unit with crisp military bearing. For my nephew, Tom, the journey began on June 18, 2008 when he arrived at Great Lakes Recruit Training Command. Friday morning, August 15, 2008 it culminated with his shipmates as they passed in review.

As we drove onto Recruit Training Command through the Illinois Street entrance our car was inspected by Navy Police and then after our IDs were checked we were directed to a parking area. Driving across the parking area I exclaimed to my brother that we were on the grinder, as we called it then, that I had graduated from in October 1972. Once we were parked, we walked with hundreds of other parents and families to the drill hall for this momentous occasion in the lives of these the U.S. Navy’s newest sailors.

Much has changed in the years since I had been there. Only one building looked the same, the rest had been replaced with new construction. It was great to be back. I know all the parents and friends were filled with anticipation and the drill hall where we were eventually seated was full of families anxious to be reunited with loved ones. As each division entered the public address announcer stated the unit and so when to door rose and the announcement, “Division 290 Ship 11″ rang from the speakers my heart began to beat a bit faster. I couldn’t find my nephew from among the crowd of shipmates that surrounded him. My nephew, Dan who was seated next to me was the first to spot his brother. I trained my Kodak even more and tried to capture these moments for history. God smiled on my efforts and I managed to get dozens of great shots of these brave young men and women who have answered the call to serve their country.

In all 967 new sailors graduated that morning. Being in the presence of so many brave young men and women filled with reverent awe and gratitude. I felt a sense of hope for the future of our country that I haven’t felt in a long time.

I got out one of my old white hats as I prepare to return to the Great Lakes, IL area tomorrow. It still fits and it’s in very good shape. I thought I’d bring the hat with me so that my nephews could see it. I had been looking for my old neckerchief that I wore with dress blues. I was going to give it to my nephew as a gift from an old sailor to a new one. Alas, I can’t find the neckerchief. I’ve got my dress blues, dress whites and a couple of white hats, but no neck gear. My Dad gave me his neckerchief from World War II after I got out of Boot Camp and I wore it on some occasions. I wanted my nephew Tom who passes in review on Friday to have a keepsake too.

Tom passes in review on the Feast of the Assumption. It’s a day that has meaning for Tom. He brought it up in a letter he sent me a few weeks back. There is something Marian about the Navy and Great Lakes. I’ve loved the color blue all my life and Friday I’ll be in one of the bluest places on earth. I’m going to get Tom a gift certificate to Starbucks. He said the chaplain said that God’s love is like a double chocolate chip frappucino and I think the chaplain might be right on the money. God bless Tom, his shipmates and the United States Navy.

Thursday of this week will see me traveling to Great Lakes, Illinois. I haven’t been there since February 8, 1973. My nephew is due to Pass in Review. He’s been at Great Lakes Recruit Training Center since late June. Tom signed up on a delayed enlistment plan in January. Since then a young man I hardly knew because we’re usually separated by hundreds of miles has constantly been in my thoughts and prayers. I called him the night before he left and talked briefly with him and let him know that I’d be praying for him. I’ve sent him 7 letters and a postcard since he’s been in Boot Camp. I know from being there that “mail call” can be a lonely time. I’ve done my best to lighten his load and encourage him along the path to his new career. Whether Tom stays in the Navy for four or thirty-four years one thing is for certain now, he’ll never be the same again. Boot camp is one of those rights of passage that young men and women go through that set them apart from their peers. It is designed to be that way. He has metamorphosed from a civilian with a distinct individuality into a member of a military unit where each person is part of a great whole.

This journey to Great Lakes is part of a larger journey which Tom’s enlistment has been for me. It’s been a journey into my own past and a better insight into my own experience of the United States Navy. Thirty-six years ago on the 13th of October 1972, I led the division onto the field carrying the American flag. I got the honor because I’m tall and I had a good military bearing. I get goose bumps just thinking about standing again at a place where my own Navy journey began. So much has changed in these past 36 years and yet so much remains the same. I’m as anxious as a nineteen year old once more except I know now how it turned out. I did well. I excelled and I hope the same for Tom and his shipmates. One thing is for certain as they pass in review there will be one old sailor with a lump in his throat, a tear in his eye and a chest filled with a healthy sense of pride for this new group of sailors about to become part of the greatest navy in the history of the world.

Today is our daughter’s 21st birthday. Wow! Where did the last twenty-one years go? She came into our lives twenty-one years ago and at least in my case completely revised all of my assumptions about girls and women. She has gone from being cute to beautiful. She has her mother’s charm and beauty and my candor. She likes Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. She’s owns a VW Beetle now. Those are all things I did at one time or another. Just last week I told her the only thing left is to join the Navy. I don’t think she’lll be doing that anytime soon. She leaves our home again soon, this time for a year long student teaching assignment. She taught me and later her mother how to send text messages and now that’s one of the ways our family stays together.   My daughter has given me insights into the feminine mystique and in ways a father can understand. She’s been God’s gift to us and we are more than grateful. Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to you!

One day you may say, “I found God, I know him, he is so and so, he is there and there, he is in me, in creation, in the eucharist …” That is a day of disaster for you because you will have found your God, your own projection, so pitiful and small. These gods - these idols - in turn keep us pitiful and small. We would fight for them … They can be terrible … Mystery does not require defenders. Idols do. Mystery makes us humble.–Anthony De Mello, SJ.

I came across this quote in my reading tonight and it took me back to something that I had written on Thursday on “Merton and Me.”

I began my day driving to nearby Olean to the Verizon Wireless store. I was returning one phone and exchanging it for another. When I finished it was 10:40 am and I thought with luck I can get to Mt. Irenaeus at least in time for communion.  I did better than that, I got there in time for the Gospel. The chapel was packed today with nearly 60 people, many who had come to celebrate a wedding, some to visit Fr. Dan Hurley, OFM who is aging and ageless. Hurles as he is affectionately known is 88 years old and still going strong. His eyesight is failing but not his vision, his heart nor his appeal to family and friends. Following Mass and a sumptuous bruch I made my way up through the Genesee River Valley to one of my other favorite spots in Western New York. I got to the Abbey of the Genesee in time for Vespers and Benediction. I love the adoration of the Eucharist, it is one of my favorite liturgical ceremonies and combined with vespers it was a beautiful way to spend part of my afternoon.  I used the camera of my new Blackberry Curve to take this lovely picture of Our Lady of the Genesee. I often stop to pray near this statue and today’s weather combined to make a beautiful picture. As I sat near the statue I thought of the Magnificat we’d just prayed as Vespers ended.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;

he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;

the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.

He has mercy on those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm

and has scattered the proud in their conceit,

Casting down the mighty from their thrones

and lifting up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good thing

and sent the rich away empty.

He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,

to remember his promise of mercy,

The promise made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

Last night I attended a talk given by Walt Chura, SFO at Mount Irenaeus. Walt’s topic was the “Transformations of Thomas Merton.” Walt talked about the similarities between the transformations of Francis of Assisi and Thomas Merton and helped me to more clearly see each man and their journey to God and my own journey too. Both Merton and Francis were profligate sinners. They knew excess and it is or was their excess that eventually drew them close to God.

I was thinking as I ran this morning and contemplating what it means to me and it occurred to me that it’s possible to know God without theology. In fact theology might actually come between us and God. In the west and particularly in Western Christianity we are totally absorbed in describing God and what God is and isn’t. It’s that obsession with description that actually stands in the way of our knowing God. In twelve step programs, old timers frequently say that if you can describe the higher power, you’ve just lost him or her. If that’s true, and I believe it is, then theology or theologies could actually be standing in the way of knowing God or following God. I think both Merton and Francis knew this. I was thinking too of the popular Christian view of a sin centered universe and how that shapes Western Civilization. The less popular theology is of Duns Scotus and the Theology of the Incarnation that says that Christ came not to save the world from its sins but to show how much God loved the world.

If you tell that to your average American Christian you’ll be in for the fight of your life, but it makes sense to me. I read a book a few years ago by an Irish theologian who said that spirituality had been around for 10,000 years and that religion for only the last four or five thousand of those years. Karl Rahner once said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.” The Buddhists speak of the various paths of truth as being fingers pointing to the moon. Drawing from all of this and Walt’s talk last night I believe its possible to get so caught up in the fingers as to miss the moon. Its possible that a profligate life is really the path of the true seeker and that it’s not a sin centered universe but a sartori centered universe in which each man and women is moving slowly, very slowly towards enlightenment which Christians in the west would call redemption.

I’m in the process of waking up. It’s a journey and not a destination. I’ll never be fully awake but I hope that I continue to awaken to the reality of the world that has been created for all of us. This isn’t the Madison Avenue marketing world or the world as described on the evening news. This is the world that St. Francis of Assisi awakened to. This world that I’m waking up to is found in the space between thoughts. It’s found in the darkness between stars.

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, all mystics -Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare. — Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Read more by Anthony de Mello here.