The wind comes through the trees

 

Calligraphy by Thomas Merton

A couple of quotes from Thomas Merton:-

The spiritual life is something that people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual. Spiritual life is guilt. Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament: that is to say, the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.

(from "Day of a Stranger")

And while I am here, another.............

Our real journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.

(from "The Road to Joy", sub-titled "Letters to New and Old Friends")

I would quibble now about the simple "interior" but hey, no real argument.

As posted, the last quote comes from the volume of Merton's letters written to his friends, "The Road to Joy". The title given comes from one of the many exchanges to be found in the volume, as described by the editor of the letters in the Introduction:-

The theme of joy (a word Merton uses frequently) runs through the letters—joy found in new and old friendships, the enjoyment of being in contact with one’s friends, the rejoicing together when friendships are kept in repair. The title is taken from a phrase which Merton appropriated from one of his young correspondents, Grace Sisson. In 1962, when Grace was five, her father, Elbert R. Sisson, sent Merton a drawing she had done of a house. Merton was so enchanted with the drawing that it inspired him to write a poem, “Grace’s House,” in which he meticulously described everything which she had drawn, ending by regretting that “Alas, there is no road to Grace’s house!” Five years later, Grace sent Merton another drawing, this time of a road which she dubbed “The Road to Joy.” Merton adopted the phrase in his answer to her, using it to describe the unfathomable grace of friendship. He might well have invited all his friends to join him in traveling the “road to joy, which is mysteriously revealed to us without our exactly realizing.”

That is it really, at least as I experience it. Our "real journey in life" that in the Pure Land we know as the way of no-calculation where things are made to become so of themselves. We simply need the trust of a child, because as the Gospel of St Mark has it in one of the little Parables of the Kingdom:-

The earth brings forth fruits of herself