Merton's Old Seeds Feel Like New Seeds

One of my online groups has been making our way through Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation; we meet once a month, and we read several chapters for each session.  I am struck by how each of us routinely says that we're no good at contemplation--but these people are some of the more contemplative people I know.

We think of contemplation as a time alone, in an isolated place, a time of sitting, a time of emptying our minds, a time of listening for God.  And contemplation may be these things--but it may be something else completely.

However, varieties of contemplation aren't what interested me this week.  In chapter 37 of Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, I was struck by this passage:  One of the worst things about an ill-timed effort to share the knowledge of contemplation with other people is that you assume that everybody will want to see things from your own point of view, when as a matter of fact, they will not" (p. 271).  He goes on to say, "Often we will do much more to make men contemplative by leaving them alone and minding our own business--which is contemplation itself--than by breaking in on them with what we think we know about the interior life" (p. 272).

In other words, we need to shut up.  There are many reasons why I found this idea so refreshing.  I found it a profound relief to hear Merton say that we're not required to share every element of our faith journey with others, that in fact we should not do that. 

In this time period where everyone takes to all sorts of social media platforms to bellow about what they believe, with the assumption that their beliefs are all encompassing and correct, I wanted to weep with joy at Merton telling us of the damage that we do, of Merton telling us to be quiet and tend to our own business, rather than inserting ourselves into other people's lives.

Of course, I'm not always good at that, particularly when my loved ones are suffering.  I want to manage their depression; I want to figure out a way to alleviate what's aggravating them. I want to believe that I don't bully them about their beliefs about God, but perhaps my troubleshooting and idea generating feels that way.  

One of my online group members noticed that Merton talks about God in passive voice--an interesting choice.  Again, it's a very different belief than one that many people have in a God that swoops in and behaves in action verbs:  rescue, save, damn, judge, on and on I could go.  That God doesn't seem to be the God that Merton has met.

Another group member noted how much Merton talks about the joys of God.  When I think about Merton and God, joy is not the word that comes to mind.  But that may be rooted in the ways that society viewed Merton, not in Merton's writing.

I find myself wanting to read Merton's journals, which I haven't explored much of, if at all.  I've always been more of a Henri Nouwen or Madeleine L'Engle kind of journal reader.  Of course, for the next few months, I won't have much time to read much of anything outside of seminary reading.

I'm grateful for this online group which has been meeting for 4 or 5 years, reading texts I might not read or revisit, thinking about these texts in new and different ways.  It's a different kind of community, but it is one nonetheless.