Let Us Pray

Several times I have been to Gethsemane, the monastery in Kentucky, and I thought that the monks could see current events more clearly because of their distance from them. Thomas Merton saw that the defining issue in America is race. 

We will conquer it or be consumed by it. What is it like to die? Picture dying with the awareness of it and with regret because the meaning of your own life and life in general is being challenged as it happens, incidentally or otherwise.

Race has put us there. For those who aren't in denial, or shock, we are witnessing our own death. Merton understood that the issue of race in America required a transformation. It was a crossroads. We could not go on as we were.

We would be transformed as a people or die. Unchallenged and unchanged we would fail and that meant dissolution into moral misery and degradation. The issue could not be withdrawn. And we have taken the wrong road and are dying. 

It may be inadvertent and it's three-dimensional, at least. The road not taken travels the wrong road with us. We are prodigals with the hope of transformation always at an elbow. It is always an option and inadvertence isn't an excuse. 

Injustice can demand to be addressed and denial is hard work. It is wearing us out. There's lightness and grace in the transformation and if we can get a glimpse of it, well, it might be self-reinforcing and keep on happening. 

Meanwhile, as the monks would do, let us pray. The wages of sin are upon us.