Merton's Epiphany

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.

It was like waking from a dream of separateness,
of spurious self-isolation in a special world,
the world of renunciation and supposed holiness.

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was
such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.

I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which
God Himself became incarnate.

As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could
overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are.
And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained.

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around
shining like the sun.

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched
by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs
entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes
of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind
or the brutalities of our own will.

This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is
the pure glory of God in us.

It is so to speak his name written in us … like a pure diamond,
blazing with the invisible light of heaven.

It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions
of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that
would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.

I have no program for this seeing. It is only given.
But the gate of heaven is everywhere.


~ Thomas Merton
Shining Like The Sun