Merton Again

Read a couple of days ago in a moment of extreme despair:

"How close God is to us when we come to recognize and to accept our abjection and to cast our care entirely upon Him! Against all human expectation He sustains us when we need to be sustained, helping us to do what seemed impossible. We learn to know about Him, now, not in the 'presence' that is found in abstract consideration - a presence in which we dress Him in our own finery - but in the emptiness of a hope that may come close to despair. For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair when, instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on the air. Hope is always just about to turn into despair, but never does so, for at the moment of supreme crisis God's power is suddenly made perfect in our infirmity. So we learn to expect His mercy most calmly when all is most dangerous, to seek Him quietly in the face of peril, certain that He cannot fail us though we may be upbraided by the just and rejected by those who claim to hold the evidence of His love." - Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

Peace,
Sam