Richard Rohr has introduced me to Joanna Macy and her concept of deep time. Today, liturgically we celebrate deep time. We feel our connection with the holy ones—named and unnamed—who have gone before. We are in thin places (My Celtic forebears understood that there is a very thin place between us and those who have gone before.) where we are one in the communion of saints. Rohr says our concept of the communion of saints is our rendition of reincarnation.  We look to the past and remember. We live in the present and understand relationships and connectedness. We gaze toward the future with hope for the full coming of the Kin-dom. This is the big picture.

Thomas Merton described it in this way:

The contemplative life must provide an area, a space of liberty, of silence, in which possibilities are allowed to surface and new choices—beyond routine choice—become manifest. It should create a new experience of time, not as stopgap, stillness, but as temps vierge—virginal time—not a blank to be filled or an untouched space to be conquered and violated, but a space which can enjoy its own potentiality and hope—its own presence to itself. One’s own time. But not dominated by one’s own ego and its demands. Hence, open to others—compassionate time, rooted in the sense of common illusion and in criticism of it. (A Year with Thomas Merton, 562) Continue reading →