This morning, walking past the open door of a church a hand beckoned me in, so I walked in and sat down and m umbled prayers, sang, kneeled, crossed myself, turned and walked out the door, shaking the Celebrant's outstretched hand.

In 1968, Thomas Merton left the Monastery of Gethsemani for New Mexico, twice, N. California, Alaska, then on to India and Thailand. He had also planned to visit Japan, but before he could get there, he shocked himself to death.

I would like to tell him that as electrical signals travel through the brain, triggering memory fragments and spurious input, the cortex pulls them together into stories and visual images. This, of course could be the explanation for the inspirational nature of dreams, especially thatthis afternoon a friend informed me that I had not attended a Catholic, but a High Anglican church. I could almost hear Tom Merton joke, No pontiff, no pons,