“The word virtue: what a fate it has had in the last three hundred years! The fact that it is nowhere near so despised and ridiculed in Latin countries is a testimony to the fact that it suffered mostly from the mangling it underwent at the hands of the Calvinists and Puritans. In our ownContinue reading “A fifth visit to The Seven Storey Mountain”
Author Archives: heather choate davis
A fourth visit to The Seven Storey Mountain
Early on in his memoir, when Thomas Merton was still an agnostic—at best—he was ill enough to consider death. He was still in his teens, a reluctant student in a parochial school. And here is how his thoughts unfolded: “If I have to die—what of it. What do I care? Let me die, then, andContinue reading “A fourth visit to The Seven Storey Mountain”
A third (brief) visit to The Seven Storey Mountain
“The truth is that my inspiration to do something for the good of mankind had been pretty feeble and abstract from the start. I was still interested in doing good for only one person in the world– myself.” Thomas Merton
How big is your world?
This old and exceedingly wise commercial did not intend to make people think about God. But it does. It prompts us to ask if we’ve trained ourselves—-perhaps unwittingly—-to live lives tailored to our own jar-sized spaces. If we’ve allowed for God at all, have we only given access to one that might fit into ourContinue reading “How big is your world?”
Prayer to end Genocide
O Lord, we cry to you, with deep pain in our hearts and souls. Our hearts ache, because of genocide caused by the lust for power, cruel hatred for others, because of their race, religion or physical differences. God of all, the heavens weep, the winds whisper through this great world you have created. WeContinue reading “Prayer to end Genocide”
Heather Choate Davis 