“To belong to God I have to belong to myself. I have to be alone—at least interiorly alone. This means the constant renewal of a decision. I cannot belong to people. None of me belongs to anybody but God. Absolute loneliness of the imagination, the memory, the will. My love for everybody is equal, neutral, and clean. No exclusiveness. Simple and free as the sky, because I love everybody and am possessed by nobody, not held, not bound.
In order to be not remembered or even wanted, I have to be a person that nobody knows. They can have Thomas Merton. He’s dead. Father Louis—he’s half dead too. For my part, my name is that sky, those fence-posts, and those cedar trees. I shall not even reflect on who I am and I shall not say my identity is nobody’s business, because that implies a truculence I don’t intended. It has no meaning…Now my whole life is this—to keep unencumbered. The wind owns the fields where I walk and I own nothing and am owned by nothing, and I shall never even be forgotten because no one will ever discover me.”
- from The Sign of Jonas