A whole world of meaning

Clyde Glandon sent me this excerpt from the writings of Thomas Merton:

The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, or rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside. What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

"...a whole world of meaning." Isn't that wonderful? If we can tear ourselves away from our radios and televisions and iPods, this kind of deep listening will be possible.