The Well Beneath the Storm

In the monastery at Gethsemani, Thomas Merton once described a moment during night prayer when a violent thunderstorm shook the abbey walls. The windows rattled, rain hammered the roof, and lightning split the Kentucky darkness. Yet the monks continued sitting in silence, their breathing steady, their hearts anchored in the presence of God. Merton later wrote that the storm revealed something — not the absence of peace, but its true depth.…