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Notes from the Monthly Zoom Meeting
June 25, 2022
"Non-judgement"
For the date of the next monthly meeting, see Zoom meeting page
[ For other months, see Notes from previous monthly meetings ]

There’s a plaque in downtown Louisville, at the intersection of what used to be 4th and Walnut (now 4th and Muhammad Ali Blvd., see the plaque behind the lamppost), that marks the spot where Thomas Merton, the Trappist Catholic monk, had a mystical experience while running errands for his monastery.

In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton writes:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness. …This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.

…it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts, where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.

… if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Another Thomas Merton quote:

"The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow :

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.
     - Parker Palmer

You are whole and also part of larger and larger circles of wholeness you may not even know about.

You are never alone.
And you already belong.
You belong to humanity.
You belong to life.
You belong to this moment, this breath.
     - Jon Kabat-Zinn

When all that we understand of self and world comes together in the center place called heart, we are more likely to find the courage to act humanely on what we know.
     - Parker Palmer

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved all those people . . . even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness.
     - Thomas Merton

You are not a drop in the ocean,
You are the entire ocean in a drop.
     - Rumi

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
     - Martin Luther King

I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our changes are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves – we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.
     - Mary Oliver

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Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.
     - Parker Palmer

You are whole and also part of larger and larger circles of wholeness you may not even know about.

You are never alone.
And you already belong.
You belong to humanity.
You belong to life.
You belong to this moment, this breath.
     - Jon Kabat-Zinn

When all that we understand of self and world comes together in the center place called heart, we are more likely to find the courage to act humanely on what we know.
     - Parker Palmer

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved all those people . . . even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness.
     - Thomas Merton

You are not a drop in the ocean,
You are the entire ocean in a drop.
     - Rumi

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
     - Martin Luther King

I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our changes are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves – we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.
     - Mary Oliver

more    
quotes