A Renewed Vision

If we really want to escape the loneliness caused by our disconnection from God’s creation, we’ll need to recover the mystic’s vision of a St. Francis, a St. Hildegard of Bingen, a Thomas Merton, who saw clearly the sacredness of the living world. We can’t manufacture such a vision; it will always be a gift from God, and its form and timing will never be something we can predict or control. 

But we can pray for such a gift, and we can hope for it. We can read and write poetry, appreciate and create fine art, make things with care and skill and love, all of which are wonderful ways to open our hearts to our kinship with the living world.

We’re lonely not only because of our disconnection from each other, but also because we’ve become blind to our connection with God’s creation, in all of its sacred aliveness. But as the Gospels describe it, our Savior is pretty good at opening the eyes of the blind. “Lord, please let me see!”

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “An Antidote to Loneliness“
by Kyle Kramer