T. Merton

Recently I've been rereading Thomas Merton's book No Man is an Island, and I've been having an enjoyable time with it. He says ...

"If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved...We must somehow strip ourselves of our greatest illusions about ourselves, frankly recognize in how many ways we are unlovable, descend into the depths of our being until we come to the basic reality that is in us, and learn to see that we are lovable after all, in spite of everything!"

Oh and I love this one ...

"The value of our activity depends almost entirely on the humility to accept ourselves as we are. The reason why we do things so badly is that we are not content to do what we can. We insist on doing what is not asked of us, because we want to taste the success that belongs to somebody else."

This book is rather engrossing. Last night my roommates and I were talking about the Christian idea of a "calling" vs. "vocation". And I got to whip out all these fabulous things Thomas said. It's been really helpful for me, so hopefully it was helpful to them.

This conversation happened last night,

Anna: "Laura?"
Laura: "Yes?"
Anna: "You do like physical contact don't you?"
Laura: "Uh ... what do you mean?"
Anna: "Well when we first met you, you said you didn't like people to touch you..."
Laura: "Yeah that maybe wasn't totally true."
Anna: "I know! I just realized that in all your pictures you're touching EVERYONE!"

So now it's out. My roommates know that I don't mind hugs and high fives and cuddling ... well I still hate high fives.


It's also now out that two of my roommates have formed Mission Year crushes. Puhleease.


It's beautiful out today.


Guess what? My friends are coming on Sunday. Then next week I'm headed back to C-bus.