{"id":1209,"date":"2007-08-14T09:35:06","date_gmt":"2007-08-14T09:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/voice-of-the-day-thomas-merton-8.html"},"modified":"2007-08-14T09:35:06","modified_gmt":"2007-08-14T09:35:06","slug":"voice-of-the-day-thomas-merton-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/voice-of-the-day-thomas-merton-8.html","title":{"rendered":"Voice of the Day: Thomas Merton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Better just to smell a flower in the garden…than to have an unauthentic experience of a much higher value. Better to honestly enjoy the sunshine or some light reading than to claim to be in contact with something that one is not in contact with at all.
\n– Thomas Merton
\nQuoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom, by Hugh Feiss<\/i>
\n+ Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail<\/A><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Better just to smell a flower in the garden…than to have an unauthentic experience of a much higher value. Better to honestly enjoy the sunshine or some light reading than to claim to be in contact with something that one is not in contact with at all. – Thomas Merton Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nVoice of the Day: Thomas Merton - God's Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/voice-of-the-day-thomas-merton-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Voice of the Day: Thomas Merton - God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Better just to smell a flower in the garden…than to have an unauthentic experience of a much higher value. 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