let the hours of the day saturate you

photography by Thomas Merton

Merton was convinced that if you let the hours of the day saturate you, and you gave them time, something would happen. He said that one of the best things that happened to him when he became a hermit was ...

"... being attentive to the times of the day: when the birds began to sing, and the deer came out of the morning fog, and the sun came up ... The reason why we don't take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness ... We must approach the whole idea of time in a new way. We are free to love. And we must get free from all imaginary claims. We live in the fullness of times. Every moment is God's own good time, His kairos. The whole thing boils down to giving ourselves in prayer a chance to realize that we have what we seek. We don't have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us ... There is in all this a sense of the unfolding of mystery in time, a reverence for gradual growth."

John Howard Griffin quoting Brother David F. K. Steindl-Rast quoting Merton, "Recollections of Thomas Merton's Last Days in the West", p. 3