"When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"
--1 Samuel 3:9-10
"Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?'"
--John 1:38
I spent part of yesterday at the Abbey of Gethsemani for a meeting of the Lay Cistercians, a group of ordinary people who have affiliated themselves with the monastery and seek to live Cistercian values in their everyday lives. Two of the monks joined us for our discussion, and a senior brother who has lived at the Abbey for over 50 years inquired as to why we were drawn to this group and this place.
It's a question I have been pondering seriously since I first inquired about participating in the group last fall, and a question that the Cistercian Order itself has placed upon us also. Last summer representatives from Lay Cistercian groups around the world met with abbots from the order's monasteries at Huerta, Spain, to explore the role and place of lay organizations and our future relationship with the Order. Lay groups were challenged by the abbots to discern, in part, why we specifically want to affiliate with the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO, the Trappists' formal name), as opposed to some other group or movement.
Each of us at yesterday's meeting offered our own personal answers to this question. The answers were tentative, unsure. The truth is, we don't exactly know why we are there, why we keep coming back, though the common themes have to do with a special, spiritual connection to those men and that place, and how the tradition interacts with our own personal biographies.
Through the discussion, one thing that was revealed to me very clearly, and which I shared with the group, was that we were answering a calling. We are trying, in some way, to respond to a call that none of us fully understand. The anonymous author of the 14th-century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, says that not all people are called to a life of contemplation. In a deep sense, we do not choose to become contemplatives, God chooses us. God gives us a disposition and desire for contemplation. We may, of course, ignore this call, but those who come to the Abbey, and abbeys like it, are trying in some way to respond to this inner need that God has placed within us. We don't know why we are there or what God is working out in our lives through the connection we've made to the Cistercians, and perhaps that is okay. We are simply trying to line up in accordance with God's will for us. Perhaps the Holy Spirit itself is bringing us together in this way.
An even deeper question which emerged from our discussion was how is my life being transformed by my encounter with the Cistercian tradition? As our facilitator Michael, a founder of the group, pointed out, we don't come to the Lay Cistercians to do something, but to become something. All of our activities need to be reflected upon through the lens of whether we are indeed encountering God and allowing ourselves to be remade according to God's will.
I am a bit chastened and feel a sense of great awe and humility at the realization that I am not following this path simply because I like it, but because God has called me to it. There is a deep responsibility and sense of wonder embedded in that fact, and it heightens my concern that I am answering the call faithfully and allowing myself to be transformed by it. These are questions I'll ponder deeply, and intentionally, in the days ahead.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Getting Saved
"It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor 'salvation' has come to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised.... The word [in fact] connotes a deep respect for the fundamental metaphysical reality of man. It reflects God's own infinite concern for man...for all that is His own in man, His son. It is not only human nature that is 'saved' by the divine mercy, but above all the human person."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Growing up in the Bible Belt, "getting saved" was an essential moment in one's life. For the churched children like myself, it was a rite of passage of great significance, when one accepted Jesus as one's personal Lord and Savior. For the unchurched, the "lost," it could be a life-changing event, and I heard many a testimony as a child from adults who had repented of licentiousness and drunkeness and a variety of other sins that were, frankly, titillating to my young ears, but here were these nice, seemingly ordinary people who had transcended those wicked ways by God's grace.
And sadly, anyone who was not saved was indeed mortally "lost," bound for the eternal flames of hell. And this included any good people who might be Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or otherwise, none of whom actually lived in my small town or whom we had any dealings with. But the lost were everywhere, because it didn't matter if you were a church person, if you had never really surrendered your heart to Jesus, if your name was not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you were a goner.
I am not trying to make light of these beliefs. The folks I heard these teachings from were by and large good people. But by my late teens, I had begun to see the world in less stark, less black and white terms. I rejected the notion that one had to abide by some theological formula to be "saved," and I began to have a different idea about what, exactly, we were being saved from.
In New Seeds, Merton tries to rescue the concept of salvation by showing how it is indeed more than an intellectual affirmation of a theological formula, but is nevertheless an experience that all us are called to, regardless of our religious labels, station of life, or circumstances.
"The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable--that which is myself alone. The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent."
Our normal way of looking at the world is "lost" in the sense that we assume we are an independent reality, cut off from all other people, alone and yet at the center of the universe. Even if we profess religious belief, our tendency is to doubt, to operate as though we are utterly alone. This leaves us with nothing but the mess of our own, self-centered fears and desires. We must give up this false sense of separateness, but to do so means that we give up making our normal sense of "self" the center. God becomes the center, and we have to surrender our whole person to be remade from that new centerpoint. And somehow by giving ourselves up, we find our true self, in all its wholeness.
"The person must be rescued from the individual... The creative and mysterious inner self must be delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises."
My forebears' understanding of what it means to "get saved" may have been limited by their own experiences, but that is true of everyone. What they had absolutely right was the understanding that we are all in some way lost, and that only by giving ourselves up completely to God can we discover who we really are.
"To be 'lost' is to be left to the arbitrariness and pretenses of the contingent ego, the smoke-self that must inevitably vanish. To be 'saved' is to return to one's inviolate and eternal reality and to live in God."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Growing up in the Bible Belt, "getting saved" was an essential moment in one's life. For the churched children like myself, it was a rite of passage of great significance, when one accepted Jesus as one's personal Lord and Savior. For the unchurched, the "lost," it could be a life-changing event, and I heard many a testimony as a child from adults who had repented of licentiousness and drunkeness and a variety of other sins that were, frankly, titillating to my young ears, but here were these nice, seemingly ordinary people who had transcended those wicked ways by God's grace.
And sadly, anyone who was not saved was indeed mortally "lost," bound for the eternal flames of hell. And this included any good people who might be Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or otherwise, none of whom actually lived in my small town or whom we had any dealings with. But the lost were everywhere, because it didn't matter if you were a church person, if you had never really surrendered your heart to Jesus, if your name was not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you were a goner.
I am not trying to make light of these beliefs. The folks I heard these teachings from were by and large good people. But by my late teens, I had begun to see the world in less stark, less black and white terms. I rejected the notion that one had to abide by some theological formula to be "saved," and I began to have a different idea about what, exactly, we were being saved from.
In New Seeds, Merton tries to rescue the concept of salvation by showing how it is indeed more than an intellectual affirmation of a theological formula, but is nevertheless an experience that all us are called to, regardless of our religious labels, station of life, or circumstances.
"The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable--that which is myself alone. The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent."
Our normal way of looking at the world is "lost" in the sense that we assume we are an independent reality, cut off from all other people, alone and yet at the center of the universe. Even if we profess religious belief, our tendency is to doubt, to operate as though we are utterly alone. This leaves us with nothing but the mess of our own, self-centered fears and desires. We must give up this false sense of separateness, but to do so means that we give up making our normal sense of "self" the center. God becomes the center, and we have to surrender our whole person to be remade from that new centerpoint. And somehow by giving ourselves up, we find our true self, in all its wholeness.
"The person must be rescued from the individual... The creative and mysterious inner self must be delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises."
My forebears' understanding of what it means to "get saved" may have been limited by their own experiences, but that is true of everyone. What they had absolutely right was the understanding that we are all in some way lost, and that only by giving ourselves up completely to God can we discover who we really are.
"To be 'lost' is to be left to the arbitrariness and pretenses of the contingent ego, the smoke-self that must inevitably vanish. To be 'saved' is to return to one's inviolate and eternal reality and to live in God."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Never Alone
"If today you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts."
--Psalm 95:7-8
I got up this morning acutely aware that I have not prayed in a few days. My work has been busy this week and has kept me more distracted than usual. I thought I was behind on some of my political reading and writing, and so I chose to work on those things instead of pray the last couple of mornings.
Today, as I prayed again, reflecting on the last two days, I was actually struck by a strong sense of God's presence, even during that time of my distraction and inattentiveness. God was there, even though I wasn't paying attention, and somehow that was obvious to me, but only in retrospect.
My lukewarm discipleship is not a problem for God, only for myself. God remained faithful to me, and all I missed out on was the joy of the awareness of his presence. And that loss is enough to bring me back to prayer.
--Psalm 95:7-8
I got up this morning acutely aware that I have not prayed in a few days. My work has been busy this week and has kept me more distracted than usual. I thought I was behind on some of my political reading and writing, and so I chose to work on those things instead of pray the last couple of mornings.
Today, as I prayed again, reflecting on the last two days, I was actually struck by a strong sense of God's presence, even during that time of my distraction and inattentiveness. God was there, even though I wasn't paying attention, and somehow that was obvious to me, but only in retrospect.
My lukewarm discipleship is not a problem for God, only for myself. God remained faithful to me, and all I missed out on was the joy of the awareness of his presence. And that loss is enough to bring me back to prayer.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Extraordinary Time
Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, and today we begin Ordinary Time (at least until Lent commences a few weeks from now). Fittingly, the observance of Jesus' baptism is followed in the church calendar with readings about Jesus' calling of the apostles. In today's Gospel, he calls the first of them, the fishermen Peter, James, and John.
At his baptism, Jesus becomes the New Adam, the first of a new kind of people. Theologians puzzle over Jesus' baptism because the Church teaches that he was sinless and therefore would have no need of a baptism of repentence. For myself, I think his baptism must be understood in light of the Incarnation. God becomes fully human for a wide variety of reasons, some of which we understand and perhaps many which we don't. But one reason for God to incarnate in the life of a real human person is so that Jesus can show us the way, as a human. In his baptism, he becomes our example, our leader, our commander, our high priest (as the author of Hebrews is going to remind us this Ordinary Time), in this work of discipleship. He is our trailblazer and pioneer in the work of becoming a people renewed, reborn, healed. To be the New Adam, he must be one of us.
And so, yesterday we recognized him as such, and today he begins his work of calling us to follow him, just as his own baptism was followed by his calling of Peter, James, and John.
Notice that the fishermen do not go seeking for Jesus. He calls to them. Perhaps as we begin (again) our commitment to discipleship, the first lesson we need to learn is to listen for our call. Our prayers are so consumed with us talking to God, us beseeching God for this or that. Which is fine, we are told. But first, we must listen for what God is beseeching of us.
As we take our first, stumbling steps into Ordinary Time, following our new High Priest, our New Adam, let's pause long enough from mending our nets to hear his call.
At his baptism, Jesus becomes the New Adam, the first of a new kind of people. Theologians puzzle over Jesus' baptism because the Church teaches that he was sinless and therefore would have no need of a baptism of repentence. For myself, I think his baptism must be understood in light of the Incarnation. God becomes fully human for a wide variety of reasons, some of which we understand and perhaps many which we don't. But one reason for God to incarnate in the life of a real human person is so that Jesus can show us the way, as a human. In his baptism, he becomes our example, our leader, our commander, our high priest (as the author of Hebrews is going to remind us this Ordinary Time), in this work of discipleship. He is our trailblazer and pioneer in the work of becoming a people renewed, reborn, healed. To be the New Adam, he must be one of us.
And so, yesterday we recognized him as such, and today he begins his work of calling us to follow him, just as his own baptism was followed by his calling of Peter, James, and John.
Notice that the fishermen do not go seeking for Jesus. He calls to them. Perhaps as we begin (again) our commitment to discipleship, the first lesson we need to learn is to listen for our call. Our prayers are so consumed with us talking to God, us beseeching God for this or that. Which is fine, we are told. But first, we must listen for what God is beseeching of us.
As we take our first, stumbling steps into Ordinary Time, following our new High Priest, our New Adam, let's pause long enough from mending our nets to hear his call.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Finding My True Self
Chapter Five of New Seeds comes to its climax with Merton's discussion of the "false self." Earlier, Merton described how human beings are called to express their individuality most fully by co-creating their identities and realities with God. But Merton warns that this is not some kind of Nieztschean "will to power" exaltation of the individual with no reference point beyond oneself. Because of the false self, we are perpetually at risk, not of becoming fully what we are meant to be, but of actually distorting our true identities.
"All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real."
The false self is not real. It is the identity that we create for ourselves, and that we spend our entire lives trying to protect and preserve, even as all of life and creation reveals that it is an illusion. The false self is our sense that we exist somehow independently and separately from the rest of creation (and from the Creator), and that this identity is somehow the center of the universe. According to Merton, all sin arises from this distorted sense of self, which leads us to engage in all manner of greed, hatred, delusion and a myriad of other, less obvious but equally insidious forms of self-aggrandizement.
So, how do we create ourselves as a real individual, while negotiating the pitfalls of the false self? I suspect Merton will elaborate on this throughout the rest of the book, but he concludes the chapter by saying that our real identiy is "hidden in the love and mercy of God," and only by surrendering ourselves completely to God can we create, with him, the person we are meant to be:
"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him...
The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone."
"All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real."
The false self is not real. It is the identity that we create for ourselves, and that we spend our entire lives trying to protect and preserve, even as all of life and creation reveals that it is an illusion. The false self is our sense that we exist somehow independently and separately from the rest of creation (and from the Creator), and that this identity is somehow the center of the universe. According to Merton, all sin arises from this distorted sense of self, which leads us to engage in all manner of greed, hatred, delusion and a myriad of other, less obvious but equally insidious forms of self-aggrandizement.
So, how do we create ourselves as a real individual, while negotiating the pitfalls of the false self? I suspect Merton will elaborate on this throughout the rest of the book, but he concludes the chapter by saying that our real identiy is "hidden in the love and mercy of God," and only by surrendering ourselves completely to God can we create, with him, the person we are meant to be:
"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him...
The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone."
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Creating Our Identities
"Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom...To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
The fifth chapter of New Seeds continues with Merton explaining that, unlike the tree which automatically expresses its full individuality in God, we get to choose our identity, and not as one chooses which shirt to wear today, but rather as an artist who creates an identity through the work of his hands. It is not only our ability to choose freely which makes us in the "image and likeness of God." It's our ability to create, especially to create ourselves. In this sense, we are co-creators with God of our identities and our very realities. What an awesome power and responsibility. No room here for victims. We are fully in command of what we will become.
Of course, because we also carry around the "false self," we often squander this power and create ourselves very poorly. This is the topic of the remainder of chapter five.
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
The fifth chapter of New Seeds continues with Merton explaining that, unlike the tree which automatically expresses its full individuality in God, we get to choose our identity, and not as one chooses which shirt to wear today, but rather as an artist who creates an identity through the work of his hands. It is not only our ability to choose freely which makes us in the "image and likeness of God." It's our ability to create, especially to create ourselves. In this sense, we are co-creators with God of our identities and our very realities. What an awesome power and responsibility. No room here for victims. We are fully in command of what we will become.
Of course, because we also carry around the "false self," we often squander this power and create ourselves very poorly. This is the topic of the remainder of chapter five.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Source of Love
Feast of Blessed Andre Bessette
"In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us."
--1 John 4:10
The theme of today's readings focuses on love, God's love for us and how our love for one another emanates from that love.
Even before I read the scriptures for today, as I prayed for the people around me whom I love, I found myself pondering how I can best show them love. And God's response was clear to me: "Love them as I love them, not as you love them."
As full and deep as my love is, it remains partial and often sadly conditional in comparison to God's love. And of course, I cannot simply will myself to love as richly and unconditionally as God. But in this desire to set my love aside and love others as God loves them, in this intent, comes the capacity to love more fully and truly.
"In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us."
--1 John 4:10
The theme of today's readings focuses on love, God's love for us and how our love for one another emanates from that love.
Even before I read the scriptures for today, as I prayed for the people around me whom I love, I found myself pondering how I can best show them love. And God's response was clear to me: "Love them as I love them, not as you love them."
As full and deep as my love is, it remains partial and often sadly conditional in comparison to God's love. And of course, I cannot simply will myself to love as richly and unconditionally as God. But in this desire to set my love aside and love others as God loves them, in this intent, comes the capacity to love more fully and truly.
Monday, January 05, 2009
A Tree Like No Other
The fifth chapter of New Seeds strikes me as one of the finest expositions of Christian existentialism. Here Merton focuses on the essence of what it means to be a human, and the unique human experience of discovering oneself and one's purpose and meaning in life, a purpose inextricably linked to God.
"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It "consents," so to speak, to His creative love...No two created beings are exactly alike. And their individuality is no imperfection...This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do."
This passage reminds me of the Islamic concept that all created things besides humans are already "Muslim." That is, they are surrendered to God (for a Muslim is "one who surrenders to God.") I love this idea, that all of creation is already conformed to God's will and purpose and plan, except us humans, of course, though this is also God's ultimate desire for us. A tree is Muslim, then, by being a tree. And not just any tree, according to Merton, but by fulfilling its full capacity as an individual, ordered to God's vision and its place in the universe of created things.
Similarly, we reach the apex of our being, the meaning and purpose of our lives, when we manifest ourselves in our full individuality, co-created with God. I'll write more on this idea tomorrow.
"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It "consents," so to speak, to His creative love...No two created beings are exactly alike. And their individuality is no imperfection...This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do."
This passage reminds me of the Islamic concept that all created things besides humans are already "Muslim." That is, they are surrendered to God (for a Muslim is "one who surrenders to God.") I love this idea, that all of creation is already conformed to God's will and purpose and plan, except us humans, of course, though this is also God's ultimate desire for us. A tree is Muslim, then, by being a tree. And not just any tree, according to Merton, but by fulfilling its full capacity as an individual, ordered to God's vision and its place in the universe of created things.
Similarly, we reach the apex of our being, the meaning and purpose of our lives, when we manifest ourselves in our full individuality, co-created with God. I'll write more on this idea tomorrow.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The End of Seeking
Epiphany of the Lord"We have seen his star at its rising and have come to do him homage."
--Matthew 2:2
I have long been a spiritual "seeker." To this day, I cannot explain exactly what it was I was searching for. Wisdom, insight, peace, are words that come to mind. My spirituality was very "practice" focused, as if I found the right formula, I would get what I was searching for. Not that I thought there was one universal, "right" formula for everybody, but I still thought there must be a formula for me that would work.
God has pretty much done away with all that now. Not that I don't continue to be tempted by the idea that there is one best spiritual practice that I should be pursuing, or that I don't sometimes catch myself feeling guilty that I haven't been disciplined about my prayer life or spiritual reading or meditation or whatever. But it is thoroughly clear to me that this is not what it's all about.
The search is over. God has found me, not the other way around.
I'm not denigrating spiritual practice, just putting it in the proper perspective for me. Once the Christ child has been found, the practice shifts from seeking to being: being in relationship, practicing the presence and intimacy of being together. I have nothing to do anymore but "do him homage."
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Story of Us
The Hobo Journal started many years ago when I got the notion of sharing an edited version of my spiritual diary with friends. I don't know what first gave me the audacity or inclination to do so. I prayed it was divine inspiration, not ego. There certainly seemed to be nothing particularly amazing about what I had written, at least to me. But something about the writer's compulsion to share your insides with the world seemed to motivate me. I e-mailed the journal back in those days, and I got back a few thoughtful responses, which encouraged the compulsion further, but it never was intentionally about how other people would respond to it. This is a mystery I can't explain. I don't write for others, and yet the sharing is somehow essential to the process. When I stopped journaling a couple of years ago to focus almost exclusively on my doctoral dissertation, I missed it, both the personal writing and the sharing.
One dynamic I've always noticed. If I sit down to intentionally write something wise or profound, as I am occasionally tempted to do, it backfires every time. That's when the ego is creeping in, and the Spirit calls me out on it every time. The entry winds up sounding forced, dull, thoroughly uninspired. Conversely, any time I have ever written anything that had the ring of truth to it, I am convinced it did not come from me. I had no idea what idea was going to emerge when I sat down to write it, and when I re-read it, it sounds like it came from someone else's mind.
So I can't explain why I write. It seems to have its own purpose which defies explanation. Clearly, it is a history of my love affair with God (or, perhaps more accurately, the story of God's relentless, passionate pursuit of me).
Gethsemani's Abbot Elias, in his chapter talk this week, spoke similarly of the monk's vocation, which likewise has no readily-identified purpose. It is a life that exists for its own sake:
One dynamic I've always noticed. If I sit down to intentionally write something wise or profound, as I am occasionally tempted to do, it backfires every time. That's when the ego is creeping in, and the Spirit calls me out on it every time. The entry winds up sounding forced, dull, thoroughly uninspired. Conversely, any time I have ever written anything that had the ring of truth to it, I am convinced it did not come from me. I had no idea what idea was going to emerge when I sat down to write it, and when I re-read it, it sounds like it came from someone else's mind.
So I can't explain why I write. It seems to have its own purpose which defies explanation. Clearly, it is a history of my love affair with God (or, perhaps more accurately, the story of God's relentless, passionate pursuit of me).
Gethsemani's Abbot Elias, in his chapter talk this week, spoke similarly of the monk's vocation, which likewise has no readily-identified purpose. It is a life that exists for its own sake:
I sometimes think the idea of going to a monastery to interview monks is about as intelligent as going to a resort to interview people on their honeymoon and ask them why they are there. The comparison is not as silly as it sounds. The heart of Cistercian spirituality has always been the prospect of spousal union between God and the soul. Such union--or even its pursuit--transcends rational explanation.
I cannot explain why God pursues me, or why I need to write about it, but I am grateful nevertheless.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Christmas Summons
"Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of a man's nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise Him in the name of all creatures that ever were or ever will be. I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised Him then, for themselves, they must praise Him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God."
--Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Many blessings to all on this sunny Christmas Day!
--Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Many blessings to all on this sunny Christmas Day!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Merton on ABC
ABC's Nightline recently featured a three-part interview with the Merton Institute's Jonathan Montaldo and Morgan Atkinson, producer of the documentary Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton. Includes lots of great photos of Merton and Gethsemani, and good introductory discussion on Merton's life and work.
Let Your Life Speak
"A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through his pores by the crushing restraint of a spiritual straight-jacket. They come from his direct docility to the light of truth and to the will of God. Hence a saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit reference to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love of God than the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an artibrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so feeble that they make you think there is something the mattter with religion."
--New Seeds of Contemplation
I must confess that I have a judgmental prejudice against people who make an outward show of religion. This is a flaw in me, and I am also vulnerbable to the charge of hypocrisy, given that I write a blog about spirituality. I am acutely aware of this vulnerability, and hope that I write for good reasons, and certainly not because there is some special holiness about me (as those who know me well can attest otherwise).
My point is that I shouldn't feel such glee at reading Merton's words, because I have my own set of flaws, but I can't help but appreciate his point. I live in the so-called "Bible Belt," where trite, bumpersticker theology abounds. I have no doubt that the outward show of religion notwithstanding, folks around here have no corner on the holiness market compared to places where religious expression is a more private matter.
I always felt that the Quakers had the best overall advice for saintliness: "Let your lives speak." And leave it at that.
--New Seeds of Contemplation
I must confess that I have a judgmental prejudice against people who make an outward show of religion. This is a flaw in me, and I am also vulnerbable to the charge of hypocrisy, given that I write a blog about spirituality. I am acutely aware of this vulnerability, and hope that I write for good reasons, and certainly not because there is some special holiness about me (as those who know me well can attest otherwise).
My point is that I shouldn't feel such glee at reading Merton's words, because I have my own set of flaws, but I can't help but appreciate his point. I live in the so-called "Bible Belt," where trite, bumpersticker theology abounds. I have no doubt that the outward show of religion notwithstanding, folks around here have no corner on the holiness market compared to places where religious expression is a more private matter.
I always felt that the Quakers had the best overall advice for saintliness: "Let your lives speak." And leave it at that.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Reason for the Season
"Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another 'thing' and as if His creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic minds fail utterly to see."Today my pastor--one of the best homilists anywhere--noted the now-annual hysteria of people who freak out this time of year because we need to put "Christ" back in Christmas. As if we are a totally pagan nation with no religious reference point for this grantedly commercialized holiday. My pastor went on to say something very striking and profound: "Jesus is not the reason for the season," he said. "We are."
His point was that God intervenes in the experience of human life to redeem and transform it. Christmas is not about God in the clouds or God who transcends the messiness of human experience. On the contrary, Christmas is about the God who descends into our very lives, who meets and encounters us in the very human world of our jobs, our families, and the mundane, boring, broken, and yes, commercialized, securalized, and religiously pluralized world that we live in. God comes for us, in God's mercy and grace and love, so that this messy life of ours might be redeemed. We are the reason for the season.
Merton's point seems to be a similar one. As contemplatives, we do not detach from "things" so that we can know God. We detach from our false, alienated self so that we can encounter God in the things of this life.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Family Matters
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
--Matthew 1:1
“Jesus embraced humanity. Mysteriously, the word became flesh and accepted all that came with it, out of love. What about my family tree and all of its baggage? Sometimes I find myself wanting to run from it, excising all of that messiness that courses through my veins. I can’t do that, though. Sure, I’m not fated to anything. I can be transformed, I can take a different turn in the road. But total rejection? Not possible. It’s all a part of who I am. With God’s help I can discern, move forward, and even accept. Out of love—I can accept.”
--Amy Welborn
The older I get, the more I see how I am shaped by the dynamics of my family, my ancestors for generations past, for both good and ill. I work ardently on both the wounds and blessings my family has bestowed on me, and I think I’m making progress sometimes, and then one day I’m startled that I am this old and still dealing with the same family issues I dealt with as a child. I suppose I always will.
I have nothing of the sort of family of origin wounds that some people bear. I have without doubt been more blessed by my family than wounded. And yet, the wounds cut to the core of my personality. Maybe this is yet another way that all humans are united, one of the things in which we differ more by degree than by kind. When we touch on those dimensions of the human experience that unite us, that’s where we also touch on the presence of the Divine. These things that make us essentially human are the places where God redeems us, reveals himself, heals us. This redemption in no way replaces or changes the essence of those experiences, including our family dynamics, but it makes it possible to experience wholeness through our families, not in spite of our families. All things are brought together again in love.
--Matthew 1:1
“Jesus embraced humanity. Mysteriously, the word became flesh and accepted all that came with it, out of love. What about my family tree and all of its baggage? Sometimes I find myself wanting to run from it, excising all of that messiness that courses through my veins. I can’t do that, though. Sure, I’m not fated to anything. I can be transformed, I can take a different turn in the road. But total rejection? Not possible. It’s all a part of who I am. With God’s help I can discern, move forward, and even accept. Out of love—I can accept.”
--Amy Welborn
The older I get, the more I see how I am shaped by the dynamics of my family, my ancestors for generations past, for both good and ill. I work ardently on both the wounds and blessings my family has bestowed on me, and I think I’m making progress sometimes, and then one day I’m startled that I am this old and still dealing with the same family issues I dealt with as a child. I suppose I always will.
I have nothing of the sort of family of origin wounds that some people bear. I have without doubt been more blessed by my family than wounded. And yet, the wounds cut to the core of my personality. Maybe this is yet another way that all humans are united, one of the things in which we differ more by degree than by kind. When we touch on those dimensions of the human experience that unite us, that’s where we also touch on the presence of the Divine. These things that make us essentially human are the places where God redeems us, reveals himself, heals us. This redemption in no way replaces or changes the essence of those experiences, including our family dynamics, but it makes it possible to experience wholeness through our families, not in spite of our families. All things are brought together again in love.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Season of Darkness
“Inexhaustible light, dawning to remove the shadows that surround us,
wake our faith from its slumber.”
—from today’s Universalis Morning Prayer
Winter has nearly reached its greatest depth of darkness. I struggle with the lack of light this time of year. The darkness makes me feel sluggish, withdrawn, cranky. Whatever inner darkness I happen to be dealing with is always amplified by the outer darkness this time of year.
And yet, in a few days the darkness will reach its peak with the winter solstice, and light will start to break. This dawning of greater light coincides with the full ripening of Advent into Christmas, and the promise of Light that will vanquish all darkness in the fullness of time.
Yesterday was “Rejoice” Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent. My pastor gave a good talk on rejoicing in the midst of darkness and turmoil and doubt. His words echoed an article I recently read about the 17th century Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who gave us a wonderful prayer technique called “Practicing the Presence of God,” in which we simply rest perpetually in an awareness of God’s presence, returning our attention and mindfulness again and again to that still place within us where unwavering light shines at all times.
May this season’s darkness prepare our hearts of perpetual Light.
wake our faith from its slumber.”
—from today’s Universalis Morning Prayer
Winter has nearly reached its greatest depth of darkness. I struggle with the lack of light this time of year. The darkness makes me feel sluggish, withdrawn, cranky. Whatever inner darkness I happen to be dealing with is always amplified by the outer darkness this time of year.
And yet, in a few days the darkness will reach its peak with the winter solstice, and light will start to break. This dawning of greater light coincides with the full ripening of Advent into Christmas, and the promise of Light that will vanquish all darkness in the fullness of time.
Yesterday was “Rejoice” Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent. My pastor gave a good talk on rejoicing in the midst of darkness and turmoil and doubt. His words echoed an article I recently read about the 17th century Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who gave us a wonderful prayer technique called “Practicing the Presence of God,” in which we simply rest perpetually in an awareness of God’s presence, returning our attention and mindfulness again and again to that still place within us where unwavering light shines at all times.
May this season’s darkness prepare our hearts of perpetual Light.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Writer's Silence
Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death. I have tried to slow down a bit today, observe a little more silence and quiet, in his honor.
Frederick Smock, writing in last Sunday's Courier-Journal, reflected on a constant theme of Merton's life and one which presented a paradox for such a prolific poet/writer as Merton:
Life is a journey toward silence, and not just the silence of death. Youth talks a lot -- is noisy. Old age is reticent. There is so much to consider, after all. Older men tend to hold their tongues. They know the wisdom of forbearance. To have seen many things is to reserve judgment. In this modern era, when news and politics are dominated by endlessly talking heads, silence becomes a precious commodity. The mere absence of speech sounds like silence. But true silence is a presence, not an absence. A fullness. A richness that depends for its worth on the purity of intent, not just the lack of
distractions.
As a writer (or sorts) myself, this wisdom gives me pause. I do babble on sometimes, and to what end? This was a koan Merton lived with all his life. I think what he concluded in the end was that he had to write because he was a writer, it was the way he made meaning of his life and
experience, it was ultimately the way God made him.
experience, it was ultimately the way God made him.
A contemplative writer faces the special challenge of responding to this gift/compulsion of writing in a way that is selfless and authentic. Can we be still enough, silent enough, to allow words to arise from a place deeper than the external self that writes for all manner of selfish reasons? Can we listen to the Word itself, and let our own tiny words rise up out of that infinite Source. Our words are always incomplete and partial, but if we rest in silence, we may perhaps offer up something that reflects the enormity and magnitude of the Word Beyond Words.
I think maybe this was and is Merton's prayer for himself, and for us.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
The Advent Promise
Feast of St. Nicholas
“He who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes…on the day the Lord dresses the wound of his people and heals the scars of the blows they have received.”
--Isaiah 30:20, 26
I love this image of God gently dressing our wounds. The concept of woundedness and brokenness has become very important to me in recent years. I think I have slowly gotten more in touch with my own existential wounds, and I see them less as a problem and more as a natural by-product of life. We are all wounded and while these wounds will always shape the way we look at the world, they do not have to alienate us from each other, from our deepest selves, from God. In fact, the whole message of the Christian Gospel is that God is recklessly, wildly pursuing us, trying with all his might to make us his. Isaiah reveals the kind of love God will show us when we finally stop our struggle and acquiesce to his embrace. The wounds and scars of life will no longer define us.
“He who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes…on the day the Lord dresses the wound of his people and heals the scars of the blows they have received.”
--Isaiah 30:20, 26
I love this image of God gently dressing our wounds. The concept of woundedness and brokenness has become very important to me in recent years. I think I have slowly gotten more in touch with my own existential wounds, and I see them less as a problem and more as a natural by-product of life. We are all wounded and while these wounds will always shape the way we look at the world, they do not have to alienate us from each other, from our deepest selves, from God. In fact, the whole message of the Christian Gospel is that God is recklessly, wildly pursuing us, trying with all his might to make us his. Isaiah reveals the kind of love God will show us when we finally stop our struggle and acquiesce to his embrace. The wounds and scars of life will no longer define us.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The Gift of Contemplation
"The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it...For contemplation cannot be taught. I cannot even be cearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
In Chapter 2, Merton goes on at some length discussing "what contemplation is not," first by noting its ineffable character, and then naming numerous things that it specfically is not, such as mental reactions, ideas, emotions, trances or ecstatic spiritual phenomena, or special psychic powers. What complicates matters is that contemplation may sometimes be accompanied by some or all of these things, but that is not contemplation itself.
Merton notes that having a quiet, peaceful disposition may not make one more likely to experience contemplation, as many active, passionate people also have tasted of these things. Even being prayerful or religious doesn't guarantee it, though "they are almost necessary preparations." But he does say that one kind of "active" person is not disposed to contemplation, and those folks should probably not even think about it:
Such people, given to imagination, passion and active conquest, exhaust themselves in trying to attain contemplation as if it were some kind of object, like a material fortune, or a political office, or a professorship, or a prelacy. But contemplation can never be the object of calculated ambition.
And therein lies a lot of the frustration of my own spiritual life. Until very recently, I have strained after spiritual understanding as an object, and found myself frustrated again and again. And I have known many other spiritual "seekers" in that same, self-inflicted predicament.
What has changed for me? I think I will alwasy face that temptation to materialize the spiritual life (and there are worse kinds of materialism, to be sure), but something fundamentally has shifted in recent years. Two books have impacted me deeply: The Sacred Romance and The Shack, but in many ways I was ripening to this new kind of self-understanding for a long time. Grounded in the realization that I cannot attain wisdom through calculated ambition, I began to see my seeking as a kind of frantic effort at control, rooted in a deep existential fear that I was not good enough, that I was fundamentally flawed. And of course, I am fundamentally flawed. I am human. But what I am slowly coming to believe is the Gospel promise that we are loved and complete in spite of our brokenness.
After almost four decades of life, I am finally starting to have a little bit of faith. The freedom that comes with that faith is an overwhelming relief, and it leaves me free to explore spiritual pathways without having to obsess about the final destination. I am free from the burden of awakening, because, as Merton says, "It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God Who chooses to awaken us."
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
The Question and the Answer
"The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer. Though these are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are in fact an awareness of the same thing. The question is, itself, the answer. And we ourselves are both. But we cannot know this until we have moved into the second kind of awareness. We awaken, not to find an answer absolutely distinct from the question, but to realize that the question is its own answer. And all is summed up in one awareness--not a proposition, but an experience, 'I AM.'"--Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
What is Merton talking about here?
How am I the question? My life longs for meaning, clarity, continuity of purpose. I live through all these extended "selves" that I present to the world--in my work, in my roles as husband, son, friend, in my writing, my activities as a citizen, the questions I ask myself and others. There is a kind of fragmentation of the true self in this process, and I long for wholeness, my life in fact begs for it. Living my life as a question is not unique to me. I happen to live "out loud" in a manner and volume different from many people, I suppose, but I think the basic features of my inner life--this sense of fragmentation and longing for unity and completeness--is common to all of humanity. Perhaps many are unable to hear the gentle whisperings of their own hearts, but those quiet stirrings are still there.
How am I the answer? Perhaps because the the true self knows that it is meant for wholeness, can actually apprehend it, can smell the faraway fragrance of joy and wholeness and love, and this is why we experience fragmentation when we live out all of the partial "selves" we present to the world. We ask the question because we already know the answer, though we are terrified to believe--we are meant to be sons and daughters of God.
In this sense, the question and the answer are one. Contemplation is our most natural state, our source and our destination.
What is Merton talking about here?
How am I the question? My life longs for meaning, clarity, continuity of purpose. I live through all these extended "selves" that I present to the world--in my work, in my roles as husband, son, friend, in my writing, my activities as a citizen, the questions I ask myself and others. There is a kind of fragmentation of the true self in this process, and I long for wholeness, my life in fact begs for it. Living my life as a question is not unique to me. I happen to live "out loud" in a manner and volume different from many people, I suppose, but I think the basic features of my inner life--this sense of fragmentation and longing for unity and completeness--is common to all of humanity. Perhaps many are unable to hear the gentle whisperings of their own hearts, but those quiet stirrings are still there.
How am I the answer? Perhaps because the the true self knows that it is meant for wholeness, can actually apprehend it, can smell the faraway fragrance of joy and wholeness and love, and this is why we experience fragmentation when we live out all of the partial "selves" we present to the world. We ask the question because we already know the answer, though we are terrified to believe--we are meant to be sons and daughters of God.
In this sense, the question and the answer are one. Contemplation is our most natural state, our source and our destination.
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