About this Blog: Introduction

“In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. … “God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself.  A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it.”

--Thomas Merton

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Contemplatives and other Catholics who are prayerful, often encounter an experience they have no context for from the basic catechesis most have received in Catholic school or RCIA, for the convert.  What did Merton think of himself, the first time he realized that all his previous conceptions of God were as smoke from incense?  But he was in a religious community, had a spiritual director, had many years of formation.  He wasn't alone in his struggle, he could have been assured that many come to his state of being in relation to God.

But what if you are an auto mechanic, housewife, speech therapist or professor?  What if  you are just anyone trying to deal not only with the concepts of the metaphysical, but the experience of it? 
This blog is about that struggle, my own and others I've heard of, and some of the things that helped me get through extraordinary experiences and startling and sometimes frightening insights. My intention is for that to lead to a lot of information and useful references for the reader. If such there be.

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The "Vatican" tab above will hold links to any documents from the Vatican that are posted here or referred to.  For instance, in the excerpt at right that inspired the creation of this blog and the philosophy from which it operates, are many quotes from Blessed John Paul the Great's encyclical Fides et ratio. So that link is included along with the original document excerpted from.

Merton, Thomas, New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions, New York, N.Y. 1972.