“Empty, hungry, alone, wounded and suffering from love, suspended in the air!”
(“Empty, hungry, alone, wounded and suffering from love, suspended in the air!”)
Walking back from the stables in the hot sun along the muddy path between the orchard and the vegetable garden with a Spiritual Song under my arm and saying these beautiful words! I found a nice place where I can read and pray, in the upper part of the stable, where the rabbits used to be. Above, under the roof, there is a place accessible by various ladders. There are some pipes from the stove and old buckets and plenty of boxes in which the novices collect strawberries at the beginning of summer. There is a chair and there is a beautiful little rectangular window that looks down over the valley to the south – the outer orchard, the field of St. Joseph, the distant line of hills. It is the most peaceful, hidden, and secluded place I have found within the entire enclosure – but it is not exactly the warmest. However, yesterday, when the sun shone through the window, it was good: “Empty, hungry, alone, wounded and suffering from love, suspended in the air!”
(Thomas Merton, diary entry from December 17, 1949)
