The Servant of Unity

By St. Teresa of Avila

Most men in power have not the strength nor wisdom to be satisfied with the way things are.

The sane know contentment, for beauty is their lover, and beauty is never absent from this world.

The farther away light is from one’s touch the more one naturally speaks of the need for change.

Yes, overthrow any government inside that makes you weep.

The child blames the external and focuses his energies there; the warrior conquers the realms within and becomes gifted.

Only the inspired should make decisions that affect the lives of many, never a man who has not held God in his arms and become the servant of unity.

From “New Seeds of Contemplation”

For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

— Thomas Merton