the silence that disturbs us

I haven't been too disciplined with my devotional life here yet, but on the rare occasion that i do stop and read something, it is meaningful to me. Such were Thomas Merton's words this morning:

We talk of God when God has gone far from us. (We are far from God and God's nearness remains to accuse us!) We live as if God exists for our sakes, figuring that we exist for God. We use grace as it if were matter handed over to form according to our purpose. We use the truth of God as material for the fabrication of idols...
The truth is formed in silence and work and suffering - with which we become true. But we interfere with God's work by talking too much about ourselves - even telling God what we ought to do - avising God how to make us perfect and listening for God's voice to answer us with approval. We soon grow impatient and turn aside from the silence that disturbs us (the silence in which God's work can best be done), and we invent the answer and the approval which will never come.
The Journals of Thomas Merton - Nov 12 1952, III. 24

I changed some of his divine pronouns, and am not sure about the 'approval which never comes', but the rest really resonated with me. The talk about 'silence in which God works' made me excited about my possible Christmas plans - spending a week or two in a monastery (Christ in the Desert) or hermitage (Norbertine Community) in New Mexico. Those plans are still being organised. Watch this space!