Alone in His Own Character

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another

   of God’s saints.

There is no other like him.

He is alone in his own character,

nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God

   in quite the same way.

That is his sanctity.

--Thomas Merton, from New Seeds of Contemplation

Back from a week at a retreat center in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Colorado Rockies, trying to hold on to images like this one--and also to these and other words from Thomas Merton--during today's dreary Pennsylvania rain . . . .