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. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a total illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a separate species of being, pseudoangels, “spiritual men,” men of interior life, what have you…
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate…
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (A.D. 1968))
For in becoming man, God became not only Jesus Christ, but also potentially every man and woman that ever existed. In Christ, God became not only ‘this’ man, but also, in a broader and more mystical sense, yet no less truly, ‘every man.’ (from New Seeds of Contemplation (A.D. 1961))
To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor. (from New Seeds of Contemplation (A.D. 1961))
And until this discovery is made, until this liberation has been brought about by the divine mercy, man is imprisoned in hate. (from New Seeds of Contemplation (A.D. 1961))
And if for some reason I do not spontaneously feel this kind of sympathy for others, then it is God’s will that I do what I can to learn how. I must learn to share with others their joys, their sufferings, their ideas, their needs, their desires. I must learn to do this not only in the cases of those who are of the same class, the same profession, the same race, the same nation as myself, but when men who suffer Delong to other groups, even groups that are regarded as hostile. If I do this, I obey God. If I refuse to do it, I disobey Him. (from New Seeds of Contemplation (A.D. 1961))
