{"id":20444,"date":"2021-09-01T09:41:17","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T13:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20444"},"modified":"2021-09-01T09:50:09","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T13:50:09","slug":"20444","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20444","title":{"rendered":"Lost in the Secret of God&#8217;s Face"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vqSvTJeGU0k\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In an episode of his podcast <\/em>Turning to the Mystics,<em>\nJames Finley shares how he first encountered the work of Thomas Merton\n(1915\u20131968) and how it changed the course of his life. He says: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was at home growing up in Akron, Ohio with a violent,\nalcoholic father\u2014like ongoing violent abuse\u2014I was in the ninth grade at an\nall-boys Catholic school. . . . One of the instructors in the religion class\nmentioned monasteries. I\u2019d never heard of monasteries before. Because of the\nrole prayer played in my life to help me survive what was happening to me at\nhome, I was already starting to get opened up that way. I was very taken by\nthis idea of monasteries, that there were places you could go to, to seek God,\nand so on. And he talked about Thomas Merton. So, I went to the school library\nthat day and they had one book by Merton, <em>The Sign of Jonas<\/em>, which is a\njournal he wrote in the monastery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the first page of that journal, he writes, \u201cAs for me, I\nhave but one desire, the desire for solitude, to be lost in the secret of God\u2019s\nface.\u201d At fourteen years old, I didn\u2019t know what it meant, but something in me\ndid. . . . I got my own copy, and I read it over and over and over again. I\nthought it was so beautiful. I just sensed how true it was. Therefore, in the\nfour years of high school, [while] the violence was still going on, I started\nwriting to the monastery. . . . When I graduated from high school, I entered,\nand went in there, and then [Thomas] Merton was novice master. That\u2019s how he\ngot to be my spiritual director. I was eighteen years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jim continues to explore how working with Merton allowed\nhim to come to terms with his own story, while staying connected to God\u2019s\nreality<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reality of Thomas Merton made God\u2019s unreality impossible\nto me. That is, [Merton\u2019s] very reality was to me, the presence of God as a\ntransformed person. I saw it in this ancient lineage of the mystics that he was\nthat. I sat at his feet in the classical sense. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d knock on his door, and he was always writing a book and\nhe would sit and listen and talk, and it leveled the playing field for me,\nreally, just absolutely in terms of compassion. And then [opened up by] that\ncompassion, I told him about my desire for God. . . . Then he told me, he said,\n\u201cOnce in a while, you\u2019ll find somebody to talk to about this, but they\u2019re hard\nto find. They\u2019re really hard to find.\u201d And he said, \u201cThe purpose of this place\nis, it is a place meant to protect, to preserve, and cultivate this radical\ndesire, as a charism in the world.\u201d And then he offered me guidance in my own\nprayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SEEK ME with your whole being. I desire to be found by you\nand I orchestrate the events of our life with that purpose in mind. When things\ngo well and you are blessed, you can feel Me smiling on you. When you encounter\nrough patches along your life-journey, trust that My Light is still shining\nupon you. My reasons for allowing these adversities may be shrouded in mystery,\nbut My continual Presence with you is an absolute promise. Seek Me in good\ntimes; seek Me in hard times. You will find Me watching over you all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DEUTERONOMY 4:29; But if from there you seek the Lord your\nGod, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your\nsoul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HEBREWS 10:23; Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we\nprofess, for he who promised is faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PSALM 145:20; The Lord watches over all who love him, but\nall the wicked he will destroy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PSALM 121:7\u20138; The Lord will keep you from all harm \u2014 he will watch over\nyour life; 8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and\nforevermore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional\n(Jesus Calling\u00ae) (p. 506). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an episode of his podcast Turning to the Mystics, James Finley shares how he first encountered the work of Thomas Merton (1915\u20131968) and how it changed the course of his life. He says: When I was at home growing up in Akron, Ohio with a violent, alcoholic father\u2014like ongoing violent abuse\u2014I was in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20444"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20444"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20446,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20444\/revisions\/20446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}