"There, there is the crooked tree, the moss with my secrets, those pines upon that cliff of shake, the valley living with the tunes of diesel trains. Nobody knows the exact place I speak of, and why should I tell them? For every man is his own Jacob. He wakes up at the foot of his own ladder and sees the angels going up and down, with God at the top of the ladder. And thus he wakes up in his own unrecognizable house, his gate of heaven." - "April 23, 1951, II. 456-57" The journal of Thomas Merton.
When have I been "my own Jacob" ? Or awakened at the "foot of my own ladder" ?
Often I have suspected I was in the "unrecognizable house", but not so often have I felt it a gate of heaven.
My gate involves an 11 year old, a 15 year old, a sometimes home 18 year old and a cat named twilight. There is the "other", she climbed her ladder Jan 10, 2006 and has since remained with God on high, leaving us here to contemplate just what that could mean to each of us.
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