“By the reading of Scripture I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green, light is sharper on the outlines of the forest and the hills and the whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music in the earth beneath my feet.”

Merton, Thomas. The Sign of Jonas. (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1981), p. 115-116. (written on 8 August 1949)