Journaling helps us navigate our spiritual questions and insights | Opinion

Even though I’ve long earned my daily bread by writing and preaching, I’ve never managed to master a discipline essential to other scribes, spiritual leaders and ordinary lay-people alike: journaling.

I’ve begun journals more times than I can count, but have never been able to keep one going. I quickly lose interest or just get distracted. I put it aside.

Lately, though, I’ve been on my most consistent journaling run ever. I’ve been reading to great effect the writings of Catholic contemplatives such as Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr and Brother Paul Quenon, to name a few. I also listen to a podcast called “Turning to the Mystics,” hosted by James Finley.

Their observations have produced in me a desire and—for now—the steadfastness to write down what I’m thinking about. I’m finding the practice rewarding, as countless pilgrims before me have testified it should be.

I thought I’d share a sampling of recent journal passages. I am, of course, leaving out entries too embarrassingly private or intrusive on the privacy of others. Like any new convert to a cause, I hope I might inspire a few of you to try journaling, too.

I write almost daily, about whatever’s on my mind after I’ve finished my morning readings. Some of my entries are dumb, some are self-pitying. If any are profound, they’re the direct quotes from Merton, Rohr, Quenon or Finley.

Here goes:

— For months I’ve been teaching a series on grace at church. As always, can’t tell if I’m getting anything across, and feel my gifts are inadequate. My grace ain’t big enough, ironically.

—Last night I was feeling pretty down, largely because I sometimes feel abandoned by so many people I love and thought loved me. … I’ve seen that older people often feel this way, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. We become more brittle and less connected. But then John (my son) called, and we spent an hour talking about football and the music industry, and I felt like a new man. Ha.

—“God comes to you disguised as your life”—Rohr, “Falling Upward.”

— In poetry and sappy paintings, birds always seem to appear as markers for peace, serenity and beauty—not to mention freedom. But like most tropes this one is superficial and largely dishonest. Birds are beautiful, but they also lead brutal lives: searching constantly for food on which they prey; stalked by cats and larger birds; battered by storms. The creation is indeed unspeakably beautiful — and unspeakably cruel. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and.

—“We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” St. Paul said. Last night I slept 8 or 9 hours straight through, the deep, undisturbed sleep of the dead. That’s a rarity for me.

It’s amazing how much better I feel today, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. This reminds me of how much impact our physical bodies can have on our spiritual condition. I remember how drastically (my first wife) Renee’s personality changed when she was sick, for ex.

This doesn’t seem fair. Our souls/spirits are redeemed and eternal. Our bodies can be frail and fickle. But there it is. We’re all subject to the flesh as long as we’re here.

—“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.”—Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude.”——

—James Finley, citing (somebody whose name I couldn’t make out): “A little truth is a truth in which the opposite is false. A great truth is a truth in which opposite is also true.”

—I think it was back during the early pandemic I started delving into Catholic contemplation and mysticism—maybe before that. Can’t say for sure.

But recently I’ve been just going deeper and deeper—and getting higher and higher. It’s like the earliest days of my spiritual journey. I’m starving for insight and get a revelation a minute. Don’t know what this turnaround is about.

Plus, my grace book is on the cusp of finally being published after something like nine years of effort. …

At the moment I’m having a Holy Ghost ball. I so want it to last. Didn’t expect to ever be here again, yet here I am—joy unspeakable and full of glory.

—“Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.”—Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude.”

—“It has been said that 90 percent of people seem to live 90 percent of their lives on cruise control, which is to be unconscious.”—Rohr, “Falling Upward.”

This is what I’m trying not to do. In whatever time I have left, I want to be present and conscious and full of wonder.

—“Answers are beside the point,”—from Pico Iyer’s introduction to “In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir,” by Quenon.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.