One of Thomas Merton’s “pathways to paradise” was his passionate engagement with nature, which he was as God’s most spiritual creation.

He believed creation was the body of divinity – at once unveiling and veiling the God he longed to behold and be seen by. He never made it in his life, but his writings about nature are best detailed in a book: Writings On Nature: Thomas Merton: When The Trees Say Nothing is cherished reading for me.

I moved upstate to get closer to nature, and that has happened, but mostly, I’ve gotten closer to people and animals. But I read Merton every morning, and I consider my saint and guide for living meaningfully.

I read his writing every day, and yesterday, I read this passage from the book to Maria, who often gets out of bed in the middle of the night to walk in the woods. It makes me cry every time.

…I live in the woods out of necessity. I get out of bed in the middle of the night because I must hear the silence of the night, alone, and with my face on the floor, say psalms, alone, in the silence of the night.

…The silence of the forest is my bride, and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.”   – Thomas Merton.

Merton was a monk and his most cherished time alone was in the hermitage he built for himself at Gethsemani, the monastery where he spent his adult life.

“In these reflections,” wrote Kathleen  Deignan, the editor of the book, “we hear not the voice of Merton the prophet rousing us to a new ecological responsibility, nor the voice of the guru delineating a clear route for contemplatives on the path of creation spirituality. Rather we hear the voice of the creation mystic inviting us to become part of the present festival, to join the general dance and embrace nature as the bride, the feast, and the wedding whom we espouse moment by moment in the healing art of attentiveness to her beauty and mystery.”

Merton never lived to see whether or not human beings finally took responsibility for the welfare of the earth; I imagine he would have been heartbroken to see the destruction and chaos humans have wrought on the planet, their mother.

I’m glad he didn’t get to see it; it is hardly bearable now for anyone who loves the forest and the land; his bride is bleeding and burning all over the world.