Summer break from blogging

Merton in a ballcap:
Even the contemplatives
like to chill-lax.

For the past three years, I have offered an essay or other short form piece here without interruption.  While I am one of those kids who really wanted a gold star by his name for perfect attendance, I am learning as I get older that it's okay to step back or take a day away.  So, as summer gets underway, I am opting to take a little summertime rest from my blogging.  I will resume postings in mid-July or thereafter.   A month away from the blog will not end the world and may make me a wiser writer in the long run. ;-)

In the meantime, a short prayer from Thomas Merton, whose writings continue to inspire and beckons us to a life lived more reflective than reactive (always a wise choice, yet not necessarily the first one we seek).  Merton spent much of his life writing about the outside world while living in the cloisters and later a hermitage out in the woods. 

Merton offers these words:

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am 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 that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in 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, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I 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."

From Thoughts in Solitude (1958).