November 1, 2007 – Rose went to the vet, had her bandages taken off. She is back at work (see Photo Journal), and I am glad. Thinking of Anthony, and his struggles to help his family after the murder of his sister earlier this week in Vermont. Have no words, and wouldn’t insult him by offering any, other than I am here, which he already knows.
  Some trips you have to make by yourself, and he is more than up to it.
  If I can’t think of words for him, I can think of him.
  Had a hard time writing, though, so worked in the morning, did farm chores, took the sheep out with the rested Rose,  retreated to the wood stove with some books, including Merton’s “A Book of Hours,” a new book imagined by Kathleen Deignan as prayers and thoughts to be read in the morning, or at troubling times.
  Merton believed, as I do,  that the territory of paradise is here, on earth, inside each of us if we want to find it. It’s time is now – each moment, good or bad, that plants seeds of spiritual vitality, an interior life, and a considered life, essential for vitality in the human soul. Murder makes us consider our lives, as do many other things.
  Few of us are receptive to what Merton called the “germs of grace” because we live in a time of no room, no time, obsessed wth lack of space, saving time, making money, conquering space and neighbors, and projecting into our lives the anguish and confusion produced by the technological furies and expectations – size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price – that govern our lives and ambitions. We are overwhelmed by the very devices supposed to save us. I am guilty of this every day. This is something our culture breeds, and it hard to fight.
   What kid ever got praised for wanting peace of mind in life? What politician ever won office by urging self-awareness and funding the territory of paradise? God-talk is easy. Spirituality is tough.
    We are worked to the point of insensibility, overwhelmed by information, numbed by entertainment that isn’t entertaining, nauseated with the human race, nauseated with our own lives sometimes. Politics isn’t civil, religion fails to uplift us, customer service doesn’t provide service. Stock lots of batteries.
  There is little room for what Merton calls “the mysteriousness of being, no time for presence, no room for nature, no time for quiet, for thought, for presence.”
   So some of us struggle to make room, find time, encounter nature, try to think.
   Most of the time, we can’t or won’t. When tragedy or death comes, we open ourselves up. This is the magic and awful wonder of doing hospice work. You have to think about life when you see death, and come so close to it.
  So Anthony, a young man starting out in life, now has to consider death and deal with its aftermath. I have come to believe that almost everything life is a gift, wanted or not, welcome or not. Sadness and loss bring unexpected things, provoke unimagined responses, make us think and rethink our own assumptions about life. Sometimes these gifts are not transparent, perhaps even for years. Sometime they are instantly transparent, in that they bring out things in us we could not normally see.
  When that happens, those seeds of spiritual vitality are planted, and grow. Talking to Anthony this morning, I could almost feel them growing on the telephone. Still, and to be honest, it is heartbreaking, no matter how you think about it. Sadness grows as well as in the soul, and hurt and loss.
  The territory of paradise is strange, and close, and it is here, embedded in our lives. So Anthony doesn’t have to be told he is supported. He knows. The present is our territory of paradise, the mind is our home.