What now?

My dear friend Barbara called me tonight from Santa Fe. She was staying at her mom’s house, looking out at a desert sky full of lightning. She wanted to tell me that she’d found a copy of my first book “Baptism by Fire” in the guest room and she’d just finished rereading it. The first time she’d read the book, she and I had barely known each other. Barely known Christ. Now I count her on a short list of very special people in my life. And in the church.

She and I are both entering seasons of change. Mine, at least on the surface, appears to have more shape to it: I’m starting my MA program, Remy is starting college, Graham is finishing college. Lon and I are in the middle of repainting a room, reclaiming what had been the turf of children as a real grown-up office for me. I am far from having all the answers— about who will publish my new book, about where this MA will lead— but I have chosen a new road and have begun heading down it. Barbara’s entering a different stage, that place where your exterior life still appears quite defined— perfect even— but underneath there are fissures of change splitting across your psyche, groaning, demanding their due. We talk of the need to be still, to wait, to pray. We talk of seeing the things God puts right in front of you until something starts to become clear.

In times like these I always turn to “The Prayer of Thomas Merton.” At one point I kept a copy of it in my wallet, could recite it by heart. But it was not until Kate Campbell, another dear friend, recorded it that the prayer, for me, came fully into its own. Which is, in the end, the goal that God has for each one of us.

Many thanks to Kate for allowing me to share it with you here. Prayer Of Thomas Merton