Merton.

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

THE MONK BY THE SEA, 1809/10 ( Berlin Nationalgalerie)

. . . . .

from my email:

"Lady, when on that night I left the Island that was once your England, your love went with me, although I could not know it, and could not make myself aware of it. It was your love, your intercession for me before God that was preparing the seas before my ship, laying open the way for me to another country. I was not sure where I was going and I could not see what I would do when I got to New York. But you saw further and clearer than I and you opened the seas before my ship whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which you were even then preparing for me to be my rescue and my shelter and my home. And when I thought there was no God and no love and no mercy, you were leading me all the while into the midst of His love and His mercy and taking me, without my knowing anything about it, to the house that would hide me in the secret of His Face."

Thomas Merton. The Seven Storey Mountain. New York: Harcourt, Brace: 129-130.