Poet and philosopher David Whyte makes some pretty provocative statements about the human race, about God, about mercy. He thinks in terms of decades and centuries somewhat reminiscent of the newest book by John Paul Lederach’s, “the centuries wrap round us.”
1. Does our human conditioning of the past become a present-day obstacle in our evolution into the future? What is the role of stillness on a collective level?
2. How do we humans discover our common call of belonging to and with each other?
3. He presents a view of God who refuses to step in [and is unable to], wave a magic wand and solve the dilemmas we are in.
This last point is not really all that new. Walter Brueggeman, author and theologian spoke about this decades ago when he clearly asserted that “What God does first and best and foremost is to trust us with our moment in history.”
David Whyte, along with many of us, wanders through the days sometimes wondering if we are in fact trustworthy. That wondering is followed by,
“How do we make practical choices now that lets mercy guide us?”
-Sister Margo Ritchie, CSJ
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