LAY DOMINICANS Central Province USA

Yes, I suppose, we would all want a mystical experience.  By this I mean a mystical experience of God's presence.  I suggest we emulate Thomas Merton OCSO who had such an experience on March 18, 1958 on a busy street corner in downtown Louisville, KY.  (In fact there is a bronze plaque commemorating ths erected at the site.)  He realized that God is found not only in a monastery but in the busy world, in his neighbors, unknown though they may be.  It changed him and his approach to life.  Yes, God lives within each of us and in our neighbor.  So take the opportunity to sit in a busy mall, or on a street corner or on a porch and silently look out at the men and women and experience God!

Here are Meton's words:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers….There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun...

"I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time."