when I am not present to myself

When I am not present to myself, 

then I am only aware of that half of me, 

that mode of my being which turns outward to created things. 

 And then it is possible for me to lose myself among them. 

 Then I no longer feel the deep secret pull 

of the gravitation of love which draws my inward self toward God. 

 My will and my intelligence lose their command of the other faculties. 

 My senses, my imagination, my emotions, 

scatter to pursue their various quarries all over the face of the earth. 

 Recollection brings them home. 

 It brings the outward self into line with the inward spirit, 

and makes my whole being answer the deep pull of love 
that reaches down into the mystery of God.

~ Thomas Merton

from No Man is an Island