The New Year

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
[Isaiah 60:1-2]

This is the first reading for the Feast of the Epiphany -- a day we seem to forget.  It is the day we remember God's promise in Isaiah; that the glory of the Lord is for the whole world blasting away the thick darkness that often covers us.

In two weeks, I will join my brothers in Christ in Chetek, WI, just north of Eau Claire for another "One Week To Live" (OYTL) men's retreat. (I have a number of writings on this site about my experience with OYTL.  It is a great weekend (Jan 15-17) for all men of faith to experience.  IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO SIGN UP!

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I recently came across this piece written by the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton.  He wrote this in the 1960s, but his words apply so much to today's life.  Let these words be your meditation for the coming year as you plan to grow spiritually...

We live in the time of no room, which is the time of the end. The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space, projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price, power and acceleration.



The primoridial blessing, "increase and multiply," has suddenly become a hemorrhage of terror. We are numbered in billions, and massed together, marshalled, numbered, marched here and there, taxed, drilled, armed, worked to the point of insensibility, dazed by information, drugged by entertainment, surfeited with everything, nauseated with the human race and with ourselves, nauseated with life.


As the end approaches, there is no room for nature. The cities crowd it off the face of the earth. As the end approaches, there is no room for quiet. There is no room for solitude. There is no room for thought. There is no room for attention, for the awareness of our state.

In the time of the ultimate end, there is no room for us.


[Source: Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable, 1966]