"Cross-cultured........................"

“Contemplation does not simply find a clear idea of God and confine Him there within the limits of that idea, hold Him there as a prisoner to whom it can always return. On the contrary, contemplation is carried away by Him into His own realm, His own mystery and His own freedom. It is a pure and virginal knowledge, poor in concepts, poorer still in reasoning, but able, by its very poverty and purity, to follow the Word wherever He may go.”...Thomas Merton

One may wonder why a tongue-talking Pentecostal should rejoice in the theology of a Trappist monk, but the above author was an “eye-opener” for me, his book “The Palace of Nowhere” now seemingly unattainable and James Finley’s sharing of wisdom he found within such pages being the only link I possess to it. Merton and I certainly do not see eye-to-eye on all things and some of his terminology leaves me with questions as to how he, himself, defined a few words. His use of “contemplation”, for example, coupled with his classifying it as a form of “mysticism”, leaves me with a bit of hesitancy concerning the subject matter; and yet his whole description of making contact with the Creator witnesses to me of my own experience and is a far cry from that which is preached by my own bunch. If nothing else, the paragraph above speaks to me of coming into His presence, yet always with a knowledge that “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world”; and that, alone, keeps things in a perspective quite different than what all these celebrity television evangelists have been feeding us for the last couple of decades. That first fellow sees himself as graced and unworthy of such union. The last group believe themselves to be “anointed and appointed”, their knowledge of the Book coupled with their arrogance entitling them to call the shots concerning whatsoever. I have no problem with “faith”. I just find it to embrace all of Him regardless of what comes to me and not a measureable means of “handcuffing” God. Finley sees each of us, as Christians, finding our own way to THE Way which is Christ, our journey a stumble centered on He who not only IS that path, but our anchor-line as we go as well. It is a road, he suggests, that must be walked in humility with abandonment to the life and death questions that He asks of us. Progress in prayer is always a gift……