Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, from the Seven Storey Mountain:

I write down what I have found out at last, so that anyone who is now in the position that I was in then may read it and know what to do to save himself from great peril and unhappiness. And to such a one I would say:

Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you have came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live anymore for your own gratification, but give up your own judgment into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor.

Above all, eat your daily Bread without which you cannot live, and come to know Christ Whose Life feeds you in the Host, and He will give you a taste of joys and delights that transcend anything you have ever experienced before, and which will make the transition easy.

I believe this is what God desires for us and our personal stories of redemption: to point the way to others whose stories are most like our own, to be able to be a witness to them so that they may hear our stories and "know what to do to save [themselves] from great peril and unhappiness." This is the most important part: to realize that the land that we have come into is no longer Egypt.

It's time to get cracking on my book, since I desire to help people to know what they need to do save themselves from the unhappiness and great peril where I once found myself. That's the message of the Gospel in my life.