Gateway to heaven

Google ain’t good.

Let me rephrase: Google is too good. For someone like me, it is like entering a candy store. So much to discover, to investigate, look at, listen to. I get so absorbed that time and part of life pass me by. I have to be very disciplined in using the good tool.

But think about it: you read a book. Something draws your attention. You Google it. Wholah! A totally new dimension opens up. That’s how I came across the beautiful website/blog of Lori Erickson, Spiritual Travels. Practical advice for soulful journeys. Where she writes:

In the middle of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, there stands a most unusual bronze plaque. Usually such markers commemorate a battle, political figure, or some natural or historical feature, but the one on the street corner in Louisville marks a mystical experience — one that happened to the monk Thomas Merton on March 18, 1958:

“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….There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

When I think back to my recent trip following in Merton’s footsteps in Kentucky, I keep coming back to that marker. I don’t know of anything else quite like it. Where else in America can you find a tourist plaque marking a mystical experience? Its existence points to Merton’s influence and importance, but also to a central teaching of his: there is no division between the sacred and the secular. All places are holy, including a busy street corner in the middle of a city.

Merton wasn’t the first to discover this. In Gen 28 we read of Jacob travelling to Haran to find a wife. En route, one evening, he sleeps in the open, his head on a stone. He dreams of a stairway right there where he is sleeping with angels going up and down. Waking up the next morning he exclaims: “GOD is in this place--truly. And I didn't even know it!" He was terrified. He whispered in awe, "Incredible. Wonderful. Holy. This is God's House. This is the Gate of Heaven." (Gen 28:16-17, The Message)

Jacob - Bethel, Merton - Louisville. You can alter the GPS coordinates any way you want - same results. If I were a television presenter, I would have said at this point: “This is quite exciting. Please try it at home.” Wherever we are, we can look around and whisper in awe: “Incredible. Wonderful. Holy. This is God's House. This is the Gate of Heaven."

It isn’t even a matter of preparation or merit. Anybody, any time, any place will do. It is after all Jacob (not the most honest person), travelling to his uncle because of family problems (not the ideal circumstances), sleeping in the open with his head on a rock (not the most comfortable bed or linen). And all along he is lying in the entrance to heaven. In God’s House.

During this period of meditating on this passage, I also came across a quote and breathing meditation that even provided the building and utensils for the holy place.

Her eyes are homes of

silent prayer.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

and

Breathing in: Make an altar…

Breathing out: of my ears.

-Image from W.A Mathieu

When we look, when we see, when we lay eyes upon, we build homes of silent prayer. We see the wonder, the beauty, the sadness, the joy, the misery and the pain. And we pray without even knowing it. We are travelling carriers of the homes of silent prayer.

Our ears are the altar of the holy place in the shopping mall, the church service, in an airport, next to the fire. The sounds of my life are the offerings God wants to hear on my altar. It is the offerings that He wants to hear on his altar.

I just have a feeling that wherever we’ll be over this coming holiday season – whether it be Margate, Prague, Germiston, Dullstroom, Teacapan, Cape Agulhas, Whitsunday Islands, Sunnyside, or Langebaan, there will be a house of prayer with an altar. Because we’ll be there. And God.

George

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The Restory Retreat Centre

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