Miscellaneous fragments of experience – or noticing the spirituality of the present moment

Tea Break Haiku

Two dunked ginger snaps,

Whittard's cinnamon chai tea;

nearly Nirvana!

…

A half sentence in Dorthy Day's Journal,

"How to lift the heart to God,

our first beginning

and last end…"

…

Shortest book review ever, of Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain.

Not a bad summary of Christian witness either:

"The way to seek God is firsthand,

through religious experience.

So I have done.

Here is the story.

Now go, and do likewise."

…

At the end of Merton's autobiography a Latin motto;

SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QAERENDI –

Let this be the end of the book,

not the end of the search.

Good motto for theologians who read their way towards God, and who believe much of the finding is in the seeking.

…

At church this morning we exchanged the peace.

An elderly member couldn't remember if she and I had already done it.

We had, but I suggested we do it again.

So we did – our own wee peace dividend.

…

The wrong prayers for the right

reason? The flesh craves

what the intelligence

renounces. Concede

the Amens. With the end

nowhere, the travelling

all, how better to get

there than on one's knees?

          R S Thomas

…

The above miscellaneous thoughts come from the book I'm reading, the tea I'm drinking and odd moments of ordinary life. Spirituality is about all this kind of stuff – a good book, a favourite drink, the wish for peace, and for me as a reader and writer, those connections between thought written, read and lived in the flow of moments which accumulate into a life. Feeling wistful and uncertain today – and that's OK, I'm nervous about undisturbed certainty.

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