The Lonely Other
I am struggling to understand Thomas Merton's letter to Dom Francis Decroix of August 21, 1967, (Essential Writings by Christine Bochen) in which he says in part:
> "The contemplative has nothing to tell you except to reassure you that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and risk the sharing of that solitude with the lonely other who seeks God Through you, then you will truly recover the light and the capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanations because it is too close to be explained: it is the inmate
union in the depths of your own hear, of God's spirit and your own secret inmost self, so that you and He are in all truth One Spirit."
Specifically, I am thinking what is meant by "the lonely other"?Is it any other searching person, a person you are in relationship with that you may influence, or the innermost self?
Does person mean another person of the wandering and lonely deeper self? Or in
duality rather than separateness?
Thoughts?