Of the writers whose books fill my library, those of Thomas Merton are among the ones I most treasure and revisit often. Tonight I pulled one of his books off the shelves and randomly turned open a page to read:
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
An elegant and enlightened sentence. Happiness is embracing things just as they are. All we need do is find the right tempo, take human bites each day, put things together that belong together, stop working at it so hard, make room for others, and live the life we’ve been given. Sometimes it seems the hardest thing to do is simply accept who, where, and when we are. Natural goodness springs from being natural.
I saw a very big spider on my wall last night. I startled at first and was just about to grab something to kill it, when I paused for a split second to really look at it. It was exquisitely designed. A work of art.
It was alien but impressive: built to move swiftly, flexibly, and with keen purpose. It just remained there on the wall motionless as I looked on. It was just going about its business.
Something in me changed in the space of a second or two. I left it be, and went to bed. I was happy.
Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh said:
” Deep in the illuminated heart, there is no storm.”
Let us live well and sleep peacefully.
© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
The Harried Mystic 
Just because I am a wicked woman, I must tell you this nugget of delightful information: on average, every person in the course of a lifetime consumes about 8 spiders. I am not sure in what form, whether the teeny ones that blow on the wind or bigger ones that fall on your face at night..
I’m jus’ sayin’
and yes, spiders are beautiful, and the totem animal of the writer, the weaver of words.
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DIdn’t realize we ate that many. My daughter said something similar gleaned from her college class on the history of food. I am hopeful that the one’s consumed are the tiny ones though in Asia it is otherwise.
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Whatever size, better with ketchup….
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Or, finer still, an arrabiata sauce!
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