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a writer’s audience

“In my literary career I have escaped trying to write for the public or for editors; I have written for myself. I have not asked, ‘What does the public want?’ I have only asked, ‘What do I want to say? What is there in my heart craving for expression? What have I lived or felt or thought that is my own, and has its root in my inmost being?’ ”

Burroughs, John. The Writings of John Burroughs. 15 vols. The Riverby Edition. (Boston and NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1904-1913), Vol. 15, page 5.

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footnotes for the faithful

“The literary compositions of studious premodern Christians place much less emphasis upon authorship than do those of curious moderns. …. The literary works of the doctores ecclesiae are very often saturated with allusions to and echoes of Scripture and the works of their predecessors, many of them not marked in any way, but instead woven invisibly and indivisibly into the fabric of their own words. This lack of marking of alien words is often because the echoes and allusions are thought sufficiently obvious not to need marking….”

Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite : a Theological Grammar. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), page 182.

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working from and into solitude

“But I know what I have discovered: that the kind of work I once feared most because I thought it would interfere with ‘solitude’ is, in fact, the only true path to solitude. One must be in some sense a hermit before the care of souls can serve to lead one further into the desert. But once God has called you to solitude, everything you touch leads you further into solitude. Everything that affects you builds you into a hermit, as long as you do not insist on doing the work yourself and building your own kind of hermitage.”

Merton, Thomas. The Sign of Jonas. (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1981), pages 333-334. Entry written 29 November 1951.

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personal prayer or churchly prayer?

“The use of formal prayers can, under certain circumstances, be a help even for a small family group. But often a ritual becomes only an evasion of real prayer. the wealth of churchly forms and thought may easily lead us away from our own prayer; the prayers then become beautiful and profound, but not genuine. Helpful as the Church’s tradition of prayer is for learning to pray, it nevertheless cannot take the place of prayer that I owe to God this day. Here the poorest mumbling utterance can be better than the best-formulated prayer.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), page 65.

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tweaking the workspace

“Ah, if one could work in the heart of nature, one’s window open on a fair landscape, so placed that when one was tired one could enjoy a few minutes in the green country; or, if one’s thought was at a standstill ask a suggestion from the mountains, from the company of trees and clouds, from the passing animals, in stead of painfully enduring one’s dull moods — I am sure that the work produced would be doubled, and that it would be far more attractive, far more human.”

Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), page 247.

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inner spiritual poverty

“You, too, can become a mendicant for the Lord. Open your heart and hands to God. Pray in silence and then enter the cloister of the world without expectations and let God provide you with your thoughts, words, and right actions. When you live from your inner hermit, God will fill you with a spiritual abundance beyond anything that you ever dreamed possible.”

Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), pages 80-81.

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thought and prayer

“But, praise God, it is now clear to me that a person who forgets what he has said has not prayed well. In a good prayer one fully remembers every word and thought from the beginning to the end of the prayer.”

Luther, Martin. “A Simple Way to Pray” (1535) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), page 199.

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fruit of active contemplation

“In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself–diversions, entertainments, conversations, business–but by its own constructive activity. That is to say, that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life and directing it in accordance with his own inner truth, discovered in meditation and under the eyes of God.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003 [the text belongs to 1959!], page 59.

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formative reading

“Formative reading is the kind of reading that nourishes the life of the spirit. Contrast that with other more typical approaches to reading. Often our approach is informational as we look for ideas and facts to enlighten the mind. Or our approach may be recreational as we just relax and enjoy the story line. At times our approach may be literary as we appreciate or analyze the text for its intrinsic quality and attributes. Or again, our approach may be exegetical when we try to understand the ancient text in its ‘there and then’ meaning.


“Formative reading is slowed down and reflective. It is inspirational rather than informational, and more qualitative than quantitative.


“Formative reading calls for an attitude of receptivity, the grace of appreciation, and participatory engagement.


“The chief requirement of formative reading is to move from a mainly argumentative, rationalistic fault-finding mentality to an appreciative, meditative, confirming mood. We are called to move past challenging or rebuffing the text to a savoring of its timeless values. We are called to listen with inner ears of faith to what God may be saying or doing.


“Formative reading calls for a posture of docility and humility as we accept the gift of enlightenment coming from beyond our control. We expect not only to be touched by what is read, but transformed by it.”

Sager, Allan H. Gospel Centered Spirituality: An Introduction to our Spiritual Journey. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990), p. 101.

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the Bible in solitude

“The Psalms are the true garden of the solitary and the Scriptures are his Paradise. They reveal their secrets to him because, in his extreme poverty and humility, he has nothing else to live by except their fruits. For the true solitary the reading of Scripture ceases to be an ‘exercise’ among other exercises, a means of ‘cultivating’ the intellect or ‘the spiritual life’ or ‘appreciating the liturgy.’ To those who read Scripture in an academic or aesthetic or merely devotional way the Bible indeed offers pleasant refreshment and profitable thoughts. But to learn the inner secrets of the Scriptures we must make them our true daily bread, find God in them when we are in greatest need–and usually when we can find Him nowhere else and have nowhere else to look!”

Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958 ; pbk ed 1999), pp. 126-127.