About the collector ~ Albert Romkema

"But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person."

- Thomas Merton, "My Argument with the Gestapo"

I have always had an aversion to being labeled any one thing and now I believe I am experiencing why this has been. I owned a chiropractic office for ten years but resisted calling myself a chiropractor. I became a gardener last year but hesitated to call myself a gardener. I am now attending the Toronto School of Theology but am unwilling to call myself a theology student. The reason for this has become clear to me over the years; I am continually changing into something new and any such label would act to prevent me from moving forward as God clearly desires. I am moving from what I have been into what I could become simply by living as a child of God. This is the only label I care to hold. As God advances before me on this journey, the word I hear Him whisper is "listen". My greatest task, then, has become to listen for His voice and to respond when I hear it. There is much yet in me, though, that must change before I am changed. I haven't prayed enough prayers, I haven't touched enough of what is real, and I haven't shed enough tears for my neighbor. But I am moving forward and being transformed as I go. This is who I am now, but look ahead of me and discover with me who I might yet become. God's will be done.

No Man Is an Island