What is my new desert? The name of it is
compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of
compassion. It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily. It shall become a pool, it shall bud forth and
blossom and rejoice with joy. It is in the desert of compassion that the
thirsty land turns into the springs of water, that the poor possess all things. There are no bounds to
contain the inhabitants of this solitude in which I live alone, as isolated as the Host
on the altar, the food of all men, belonging to all and to none, for God is with me, and He sits in the ruins
of my heart, preaching His Gospel to the poor.
Do you suppose I have a
spiritual life? I have none, I am indigence, I am silence, I am poverty, I am solitude, for I have renounced spirituality to find God, and He it is who preaches
loud in the depths of my indigence, saying: "I will pour out my spirit upon thy children and
they shall spring up among the herbs as willows beside the running waters" (Is. 44:3-4).
(Thomas Merton: Entering the Silence, p. 463)
