NOTE TO PASTOR JILL ROSS WITNESSING AT THE BORDER

 

NOTE TO PASTOR JILL ROSS WITNESSING AT THE BORDER

    We lift up our eyes to You in heaven,

    O God of eternity, wishing we were poorer,

    more silent and more mortified.

            Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence

Happy Birthday, Pastor Jill.

Thank you for praying for me.

You’ve always been a monk like that, praying for others.

You make things easier.

And Merton.

When I found him in 1968, just back from Vietnam,

I didn’t know his body was already gone.

I wouldn’t know for certain

until after I was sure he’d gotten

that photograph from the other side

of the mountain.

For those looking for that photograph

is something I pray for. I was reading Four Quartets

with Brother David in the garden.

I wanted to say these things without using words.

I didn’t know how. All I had was Happy Birth Day

Two words. Hyphenated. I didn’t know about the bombs

when I went to bed. Lucky for Merton.

I thought maybe you could feel my breathing.

Or maybe, maybe, you knew I was walking

by hearing my footsteps.

Jim

2 March 2026