Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent
14 December 2008
Thomas Merton Documentary premiering on PBS tonight
As they say, check your local listings!
Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton premieres Sunday, December 14, 2008. Check Local Listings to see when it is airing on your local PBS station.
Thomas Merton in the fields near the Abbey of Gethsemani. (Credit: Sybille Akers)
Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton examines the life of a modern American monk considered one of the great spiritual thinkers of the 20th century. It was a remarkably rich life and has prompted the millions who read Merton to characterize him as part Augustine, part Emerson and part Gandhi.
As the son of artists, Thomas Merton grew up in the 1920s and 1930s given to avant-garde intellectual pursuits. This led him to briefly embrace communism, which he put aside for Catholicism which in turn catapulted him to a strictly cloistered life in a rural Kentucky monastery. The writings that flowed from his monastic cell over the next 27 years examined spirituality (of the west and east), the Cold War, the civil rights movement and the challenges for the individual in the post-modern world. In short, Merton's writing took on many of the struggles of the 20th and 21st century. His thinking brought him praise, censure and the reputation as one of the most influential writers of his time. Thomas Merton died by accidental electrocution while traveling in Asia but remains one of the most widely read and written about spiritual figures of the modern era.
Award-winning producer Morgan Atkinson spent years researching Merton's work, as well as interviewing Merton's friends, scholars and authorities on the spiritual life. Atkinson's cameras reveal life at the Merton's home at the Abbey of Gethsemani, as well as his path through New York City, the Redwoods Monastery in California and New Mexico's Christ in the Desert Monastery. In bringing to life Merton's years as a monk, this deeply considered film casts a bright light on the struggles and fruits of his spiritual search.
Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton takes viewers behind the walls of the Abbey of Gethsemani examining the life of Thomas Merton.
Quotes from Thomas Merton
"Your life is shaped by the ends you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."
— From "Thoughts in Solitude"
"No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees."
— From "Honorable Reader"
"It is my intention to make my entire life a rejection of and protest against the crimes and injustices of war and political tyranny which threaten to destroy the whole human race and the world with it. By my monastic life and vows I am saying NO to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socioeconomic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace."
— From "Honorable Reader"
Christ, whose glory fills the skies
Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
unaccompanied by thee;
joyless is the day’s return,
till thy mercy’s beams I see;
till they inward light impart,
glad my eyes and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine;
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, radiancy divine,
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.
Charles Wesley
13 December 2008
Advent Full Moon
The moon was crazy big and bright tonight - supposedly because the full moon is the closest its been to the earth since 1993, check it out!
Lick Observatory Moonrise
Credit & Copyright: Rick Baldridge
Credit & Copyright: Rick Baldridge
Explanation: As viewed from a well chosen location at sunset, October's gorgeous Full Moon rose behind Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California. Captured in this lovely telescopic view, historic Lick Observatory is perched on the mountain's 4,200 foot summit, observatory and rising Moon momentarily sharing the warm color of filtered sunlight. Of course, tonight those blessed with clear skies can also enjoy a glorious Full Moon. In fact, tonight's Moon reaches its full phase at 1637 UT, within only a few hours of perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit. The close approach really will make December's Full Moon the largest Full Moon of 2008, even when it rises high above the horizon.
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