above the level of thought

drawing by Thomas Merton

"The months have gone by, and You have given me peace, and I am beginning to see what it is all about.  I am beginning to understand.

"You have called me to Gethsemani not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of category.  You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are.  Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought.  If I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done?

"I do not make a big drama of this business.  I do not say: “You have asked me for everything, and I have renounced all.”  I no longer desire to see anything that implies a distance between You and me.  If I stand back and consider myself and You, as if something had passed between us, from me to You, I will inevitably see the gap between us and remember the distance between us."

- Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain, p. 421