Thomas Merton on the hard work of the vocation of peacemaker. The words apply to any vocation that calls for human caring, from pastoral ministry to peace-making, from social care to social justice, from priesthood to foodbanks, and from counselling to any deep accompanying of friendship:
As you get used to this idea you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people…In the end it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything."
That kind of writing is why I still read Merton.
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