So It Was I

This text is set in a landscape of conflict and beauty. Where the conflict lies – within the narrator’s being or as part of a landscape scarred by an actual current war, is left ambiguous, for, as Thomas Merton understood, all wars have their origin in individual human hearts.  However, another keynote of this text is tenderness, towards the beauty of the damaged landscape, but also towards human lives damaged by our conflicts.  The narrator meets a wounded young soldier, becoming his reluctant healer, welcoming him as stranger, just as we pilgrims are on a journey to bring ourselves back from exile into a home in our own selves.