“dervishes mad with secret therapeutic love”

“We are not persuaders. We are the children of the Unknown. We are the ministers of silence that is needed to cure all victims of absurdity who lie dying of a contrived joy. Let us then recognize ourselves for who we are: dervishes mad with secret therapeutic love which cannot be bought or sold, and which the politician fears more than violent revolution, for violence changes nothing. But love changes everything.”

~ from Thomas Merton’s “Message to Poets”
in Raids On The Unspeakable

Photo: Thomas Merton with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, 1968