What We Most Need

Merton's reflections today are on his memory of the image of an anchor in the stained glass of a church from his childhood, and his desire to write against war.  Merton states that the anchor is a symbol of hope, but he remembers the image mainly from the point of view of a child who wanted to someday become a sailor.  I can certainly relate to that hope!  Although, I had no desire to become a sailor, I did hope that I might have adventures that included voyages to strange and wonderful, even dangerous places.  My childhood church where I attended seven and a half years of parochial grade school had a wonderful oak tree that grew outside of the clear glass window that took up the entire wall behind the altar.  (They've moved the altar now to the middle of the church in accordance with the new ideas about the position of the priest within the congregation-unfortunately for this beautiful view!)  I loved looking at this tree and its enormous limbs that spanned the entire view.  The limbs changed from season to season, full of leaves in the summer, fiery orange and red leaves in the fall, fragile tender buds in the spring, and bare limbs in the winter occasionally draped or coated with snow and ice.  It was a show that rivalled anything that was going on during the mass.  How could the priests vestments, the ornaments on the altar, even the ladies dressed up in their Sunday best compete with such unabashed beauty.  Perhaps at heart, I am a simple pagan, for I have studied trees all my life and I have often found their symmetry, seen and unseen, to inform my consciousness, to give me hope and the assurance that there are powers beyond our measures, hopes and dreams.