If Nothing Is Left
Where many machines are used in monastic work (and it is right that they should be used), there can be a deadening of the spirit and of sensibility, a blunting of perception, a loss of awareness, a lowering of tone, a general fatigue and lassitude, a proneness to unrest and guilt which we might be less likely to suffer if we simply went out and worked with our hands in the woods or in the fields…….
The axiom that grace builds upon Nature has often been misused. But the fact remains that, if nothing is left of Nature, there is nothing for grace to build on, there is nothing left to be sanctified and consecrated to God. This is not consecration, but desecration of the temple of our being.
–excerpt from Conjectures Of A Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton
The capitalization of Nature is my own. For more about Thomas Merton CLICK HERE
