20240412: 2nd Friday of Eastertide

Readings: Psalm 4; Daniel 10:2-19; 1 John 2:26-28. 

Transcript

Good morning. This is Tim. Trouble coming to you from Sacramento, California. Today's readings are from Psalm for Daniel, chapter ten, verses 2 to 19 and first John, Chapter two verses 26 to 28. 

Today, I want to introduce you to someone who was very influential at the end of World War Two with World War two veterans. His name is Thomas Merton. He is a Catholic priest and Monk. He was an order of the Trappists, which are a monastic group of both monks and nuns officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the strict observance of their Benedictine style. A group from Saint Benedict and he became very well known and very prominent for his interfaith understanding. He explored Eastern religions and through his study of mystic practice, he was known as a theologian, a mystic, a poet and a social activist, an activist and a scholar on comparative religion. 

We have in the Episcopal Church called a prayer book for the Armed Services. It is a prayer book that is written specifically for those who serve. It's a got a lot of things in there. It's interfaith. We have stuff for Roman Catholics, We have stuff for Jews. We have stuff for Muslims. All with permission from their various organizations and things, especially when it comes to dying and penitents. And it also has some Spanish translations in it. And one of them here is called A Prayer for Guidance by Thomas Merton. And this is a prayer it's attributed to him that he wrote says, My Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing your will. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire and all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road through which I may know not nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always. Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death I will not fear for you are ever with me. And you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 

So last year, readings that we had the very end of it, the last two verses today in our reading in John First John, chapter two and we've been talking about what does it mean to be a Christian, what you know, the Antichrist, How do we follow Christ? What are what are we doing? What's this? You know, and again, there are how many denominations in just the Christian church, not to mention the Catholic small C church. Then we have Orthodox churches that's just in the Christian community. Of course, we still have Judaism and there are sects of Judaism and also we have Islam, which also has its own sects that people don't don't realize and all of them have varying degrees. So what does this all mean? How does this all work? How are we believing in God? How are we in for the Christian faith? How are we followers of Jesus Christ? How do we know we're doing this right? And I really like this prayer for guidance by Thomas Merton, because he he admits right here, we are wrong. We do not know. We're telling God. I don't know if I'm on the right road. I don't know what I'm doing. I just hope that my want to please you, that my desire to please you is what pleases you. Because we're going to make mistakes. We're going to screw things up. We're going to take the left, turn it Albuquerque. 

There's all kinds of things that are going to happen in our lives and happen to us. And we try to follow the examples of Christ. We try to be true to our faith in God, but we are going to fall short. We're not always going to hit the mark. And one of the things we said Merton did a comparative religion, so he spent a lot of time after he passed. He died in 1968 in Thailand of although he lived in Kentucky, in the monastery there, he was baptized an Episcopalian. He was born in France of Welsh parents, or his father was Welsh. His mother was a Quaker. So, you know, he had a lot of things going on. And then, of course, you know, he wound up you went to Cambridge and wound up becoming a Roman Catholic priest and later a monk. 

But in 1948, he wrote a book, The Seven Storey Mountain, and it was a literal godsend to veterans of World War Two. My father was one of them, and this book was about his journey with Thomas Merton and it brought a tremendous amount of healing. I highly recommend that you get a copy. Again, the title is The seven story in Story is spelled st0rey Mountain. Okay. 

And it was written by Thomas Merton, the the whole it was very healing and it went well beyond and it helped. I think it would be very helpful. I don't want to give it away and I don't want to color color your perceptions of it. You do decide to read this, but it is very much it was some of it was very healing to the guys that were coming back from Europe and coming back from the Pacific and dealing with and understanding the experience they had been through in war. Because those people, those those who had been to war and I'm not one of them, I served from 84 to 87. We didn't have anything going on. 

And those who served in a war zone in combat and the things that happened, the things that unfortunately kind of have to happen, they tear at you, they dig at you. We all know this. So, again, take a look. Review this prayer. The prayer for guidance by Thomas Merton can be found in the prayer book for the armed services that we have on the Episcopal Church. There are other sources for it, of course, but think about that this week as we go to go through the rest of this week, as we're ending up here, coming into the weekend and see what see what that how that hits you and how that feels to you. Amen.