Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter Morning, Merton, and Metaphor

(Door, in Jerusalem)

Thomas Merton writes:

“The grace of Easter is a great silence, an immense tranquility and a clean taste in your soul. It is the taste of heaven, but not the heaven of some wild exaltation. The Easter vision is not riot and drunkenness of spirit but a discovery of order above all order – a discovery of God and of all things in Him. This is a wine without intoxication, a joy that has no poison hidden in it. It is life without death…." (The Sign of Jonas, 297-298)

I like how Merton puts this metaphorically. His metaphor is rooted in the certainty of this great historical truth. Significant historical truths always give rise to metaphorical fruit. This sort of thing has been, and remains, one of my great interests.