Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A Year With Thomas Merton - January 14
















Thrown into Contradiction


God reveals Himself in the middle of conflict and contradiction--and we want to find Him outside all contradiction.

Importance of contradiction: the contradiction essential to my existence is the expression of the world's present: it is my contribution to the whole. They are my "place." It is in my insight and acceptance of contradiction that the world creates itself anew in and through my liberty--I permit God to act in and through me, making His world (in which all are judged and redeemed). I am thrown into contradiction: to realize it is mercy, to accept it is love, and to help others do the same is compassion. All this seems like nothing, but it is creation. The contradiction is precisely that we cannot "be creative" in some other way we would prefer (in which there is no contradiction).

January 20, 1966, VI.354-55