My spiritual guide Thomas Merton says that contemplation is the highest expression of man’s (or woman’s) intellectual and spiritual life.

“It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source,” wrote Merton.

Merton’s writing also inspired me to meditate some years ago; it greatly affected my life and thought. I need a Contemplation Day to solidify my understanding of myself and the changes in my age, life, and country. There is chaos in my head and all around us. I need to do this regularly to get my head straight and keep it there. I’m taking Sunday off, no blog, no devices, no Food Pantry requests.

I’ll be back in business on Monday.

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Saturday, tomorrow, Maria and I are taking the wool to a wood mill a couple of hours down the road, on the same road we live on, oddly. Can’t get lost. I hope to do some blogging and flower work when I get back if it isn’t too late and we aren’t too exhausted. I’ll post the Pantry’s requests for the day either in the morning or afternoon when we get back.

I’m excited to take a Day of Contemplation. Merton says contemplation is a kind of spiritual vision to which both reason and faith aspire and collide, because without it I will always be incomplete.