our daily abiding awareness

 

~ James Finley 

becoming a healing presence in a traumatized world

 

~ James Finley

contemplative dimensions of healing trauma

 

~ James Finley

an "I" that is a subject

 

the true inner self, the true indestructible and immortal

person, the true "I" who answers to a new and secret

name known only to himself and to God, does not

"have" anything, even "contemplation." This "I" is not

the kind of subject that can amass experiences, reflect

on them, reflect on himself, for this "I" is not the super-

ficial and empirical self that we know in our everyday

life.

as long as there is an "I" that is the definite subject of a

contemplative experience, an "I" that is aware of itself

and it's contemplation, an "I" that can possess a certain 

"degree of spirituality," then we have not yet passed over

the Red Sea, we have not yet "gone out of Egypt." We

remain in the realm of multiplicity, activity, incompleteness,

striving and desire.

the separate entity that is you apparently disappears and

nothing seems to be left but a pure Freedom, love identified 

with Love. Not two loves, one waiting for the other, striving

for the other, seeking for the other, but Love Loving in

freedom.

you do not take the step; you do not know the transition;

you do not fall into anything. You do not go anywhere,

and so you do not know the way by which you came back

afterward. You are certainly not lost. You do no fly. There

is no space, or there is all space: it makes no difference.

~ Thomas Merton

from Merton's Palace of Nowhere

by James Finley

the peace that surpasses understanding

 

 

 

 

 

 

the inner ground

The way to find the real "world" is not merely to measure 

and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground.  

For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self... 

This "ground," this "world" where I am mysteriously present 

at once to my own self and to freedoms of all other men,

 is not a visible, objective and determined structure 

with fixed laws and demands.  

It is a living and self-creating mystery 

of which I am myself a part, 

to which I am myself my own unique door.

~Thomas Merton

from Merton's Palace of Nowhere 
 by
James Finley