New Seeds of Contemplation: Post 1

I'd like to begin this blog with a reading of Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation (1972), which hereafter I'll refer to as NSC. The first page of NSC contains this Latin inscription:

TU QUI SEDES IN TENEBRIS
SPE TUA GAUDE:
ORTA STELLS MATUTINA
SOL NON
TARDABIT

Here's my translation:

"You who are sitting in darkness, keep your hope alive; the rise of the morning star, the sun shall not be slow."

I have scribbled a note from somewhere telling me that the Latin inscription comes from a 12th century Gregorian chant. Merton 's Latin inscription surely is an encouragement meant to give us hope that all of us, even when we "sitting in darkness," can nonetheless expect that light will dawn upon us. As Christians who wish to practice contemplative prayer, we may anticipate a movement from night to day; we may look forward to the rising of "the morning star." Teasingly biblical, perhaps the Latin quotation is suggesting that we who find ourselves in darkness will come to experience "the Dawn from on High" whom Luke in the voice of Zechariah proclaims as Christ.

But what is the darkness? I suspect it is, first of all, a quite literal darkness. After all "those who sit in darkness" and singing these verses were once clearly twelfth-century monastic Christiains sitting and singing one of the Night Offices, well in the middle of night, in a darkened sanctuary. In monastic communities through the world, many still sing to God just a few hours after midnight. They have gathered and continue to gather themselves together to sing the Psalms in the early pre-dawn hours of the night.

I don't know about you, but it has been my practice, off and on (but more recently more and more "on") to rise early in the morning and sit in a hour or so before dawn so that I may enter the Presence of God in prayer. These hours are the quietest of the day, often a hour or so before the birds begin their choir practice to greet the day. Yesterday morning, for example, while sitting outside in the darkness, I heard the lone honkinig of a single goose flying over the lake. And every so faintly the wail of a locomotive some twelve miles away as a train made it way through Jackson. Once in a while a dog down the way woke up to bark. The leaves rustled a bit in the infrequent wind. But other that those sounds, there was nothing to hear but my own breathing. The moon was waning, but still fairly full as it made its way through the pine tops.

As I sat, slowly undoing myself from these faint images and sounds, freeing myself from the burden of thoughts, and letting go of long-held attachments, slight intimations of light made themselves welcome. But it was of little consequence, nothing dramatic. A kind of emptiness. Was God pouring himself into me? I'm not sure; but if he was entering my heart in such quietness, he didn't say so distinctly. If anything it was something of an echo of a whisper. When I sit again in such quietness, perhaps more. But even if not, God is with me in the darkness.

O, yes, in case you're wondering: yes, sometimes I do back to bed and sleep for another hour.