Tuesday, March 29, 2011

mental and emotional rubbish

The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes of all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see, we cannot think.

-- Thomas Merton
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Image) p 77


This quote really hitting home today.  HT to Jim Forest for passing it on to me.

2 comments:

  1. reminds me of a blues lyric i once wrote:

    you say you full of garbage
    gonna clean out the attic of your mind
    you say you full of garbage
    gonna clean out the attic of your mind
    gonna have a big garage sale
    the unsubstantial kind

    but you can't throw it out
    cuz it was never there
    nothing was there before it
    it was nothing before you cared

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow.
    You've taken Merton to the next level, Victor.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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