Chris McDonnell: Hermitage
HERMITAGE
There is a stillness and solitude in the hour before dawn. In that darkness there is a time when we can open ourselves to listening to the Lord. No words, but the space between words where our confusion and weakness can experience a gentle healing. Prayer is about being there, it is about patiently listening and waiting. It is never easy.
Photo Thomas Merton
In a journal entry for December 5th, 1964, Thomas Merton wrote of his early days in the hermitage. “In the hermitage, one must pray or go to seed. The pretence of prayer will not suffice. Just sitting will not suffice. It has to be real. Yet, what can one do? Solitude puts you with your back to the wall, or your face to it, and this is good. So you pray to learn how to pray.
Our prayer life sustains us, gives vibrancy to our being. That is why we should nurture it day by day, alive to God’s presence, dependent on his care and forgiveness.
After reading the account of his hermitage years, I wrote these few lines some years ago.
Edgeland
Morning darkness
the other side of night
the monk by his fire
reading the Word
watching the wandering flame.
Morning stillness
the other side of movement
the monk by his door
praying the psalms
greeting the day of the Lord
Morning silence
the other side of sound
the monk by his pond
still and silent
in the darkness before dawn.
Each of us needs to cultivate our edgeland, the place, the point that encourages prayer, the time when we remember others who have asked for our prayers. There will come a time when our edgeland is overgrown through our own neglect and circumstance. It is then that we will come to depend on the prayer time of others.