This is the transcript of my 30 minute talk on the “contemplative tradition” of Thomas Merton, delivered as part of a course at the London Centre for Spiritual Direction. My talk followed one given by another student, who spoke about Eckhart von Hochheim OP, commonly known as Meister Eckhart.
Listening to the first talk I found it fascinating how many similarities there seemed to be between the writings of Eckhart and Thomas Merton, writing 700 years later. Before starting my talk - and while they are still fresh in my mind, I thought I would highlight some of the similarities which seemed to jump out.
- we heard that Eckhart believed that “there is a bit of the soul which is always in tune with God.” Similarly, Thomas Merton wrote : “At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.”
- both Eckhart and Merton shared the idea that God is above “being” or intelligence. Merton states that God “lies beyond the reach of anything our eyes can see or our minds can understand.
- the concept of discovering God within us came up in the previous talk; we learned that Eckhart believed that “the notion must go of a God who is external” and that we are most likely to come to hear this inner voice through meditation and stillness. In Chapter 6 of “New Seeds of Contemplation,” Thomas Merton explains that God is in all things but he is not realised by all things; he says that to know God we must have God dwelling in us in a new way. He said that whilst solitude can be found in any environment, physical location is important - ideally the darker the better. He particularly recommends City churches as places for finding solitude (so we’re in the right place!)
- the necessity of dying to our sense of self in order to find our “true” self and that this process is dependent on the grace of God connects both Eckhart and Merton,
- an inter-connectedness or dependency between man and the universe and the unconditional nature of God’s love also (perhaps unsurprisingly), link these influential Christian theologians. We heard from John-Francis that both were interested in links to other faiths and were particularly interested in learning from Buddhist philosophy; Merton met the Dalai Lama in 1968 shortly before his death.
So many overlapping ideas!
The “Spiritual Tradition” I have been asked to talk about is the “contemplative tradition” as described by Thomas Merton in his book “New Seeds of Contemplation.” The book is a re-work of an earlier edition and contains thirty nine chapters (or seeds) to help nurture contemplation; but this is no self-help book. In introducing the text, Merton says that you can read it in isolation but that doing so in the presence of God is necessary for any truly transformative effect. I think that in this one (apparently casual) remark are two important concepts that underly each chapter - firstly the idea that we are dependent on God (this can’t be a self-help book or an instruction manual as we are not “self-made”) and secondly that there is some element of individual choice as to whether or not we embrace this dependency and listen to Him. Neither of these things come easily to me - or perhaps any Englishman, as Rowan Williams explains in his book ‘Silence and Honey Cakes : The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers’ “the Englishman takes pride in being a self-made man, thereby relieving God of a fearful responsibility.” Perhaps only a Welshman could say that.
I think that most of you will have heard of Thomas Merton and know something of his life (and his untimely death) so I won’t quote much (if any!) biographical information. You may have read some of his books (he wrote more than seventy). I had never read one from cover to cover, which is why I selected him for this exercise. I realised that I have, however, read books by authors who have been influenced by Thomas Merton – including James Martin and Richard Rohr. Rohr has described Thomas Merton as “a true prophet – one who sees at a higher level and thus, in effect foresees.”
There is certainly a timeless quality to the book (as we saw from all those connections to Meister Eckhart). Perhaps this timelessness explains why New Seeds of Contemplation has not been out of print since it was published in 1962. Most of the ‘seeds’ seemed to immediately speak to me at a personal level, bringing to mind events in my own life which could very easily be used as examples of the difficulties we face in coming closer to God!
In the author’s own preface and with characteristic humility (another theme which runs throughout the subsequent chapters), Merton says that this book (which in its revised form, updated near the end of his life, is seen as the best introduction to his thoughts on the “contemplative tradition”) could have been written by any monk because it draws on a long tradition of spiritual writings, including the Rule of St Benedict, the writings of St John of The Cross and St Bernard of Clairvaux. Richard Rohr disagrees with Merton’s assessment of his own importance; saying that Merton “almost singlehandedly pulled back the veil and helped us see that we all had lost the older tradition of contemplation….seeing “spiritual things spiritually” had been lost in both theory and practice by almost all of us, even the contemplative orders.”
Reading-wise, I found it a bit of a struggle, although rewarding (perhaps by design?!) Whilst from the outset the text is dense, complex, often heavily caveated and sometimes apparently contradictory, on almost every other page I found myself thinking “oh yes, it really is that simple!” A murmur of an inexpressible concept of infinite complexity but at the same time beautiful simplicity can be heard in the background of each page of this book – a metaphor for our relationship with God; a God whom, as Merton reminds us “lies beyond the reach of anything our eyes can see or our minds can understand.” (Chapter 19.)
Merton himself finds defining what contemplation is very challenging and devotes the first chapters of the book to exploring what it is and what it is not. He says “It can become almost a magic word, or if not magic, then ‘inspirational,’ which is almost as bad.” He explains that contemplation is “life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive.”
We were asked to consider how best to present our talk. On learning of my topic and the title and seeing the structure of the book, I thought I would try to distil each chapter into an image – and perhaps create a physical ‘flower’ for each one, revealing these to you from a box, one by one, to assemble a ‘bouquet’ – each flower saying something in itself but also creating meaning and beauty when placed together. However, after reading the book I have decided not to use any props or visual aids in this presentation because I do not feel that it is right to do that – at least at the moment. In the first chapter of the book, Merton explains that “contemplation is beyond aesthetic intuition, beyond art, beyond poetry….Contemplation is always beyond our own knowledge…beyond explanations.”
That is not to say that he dismisses the value of the arts as a route to aiding contemplation; he was an aesthete himself, born into an artistic family and it was art which is said to have been the “arrow of evangelisation” for Merton (a wonderful phrase coined by Bishop Robert Barron which I heard last week - Barron is also influenced by the writings of Thomas Merton). Merton was baptised an Anglican although as a young man famously proclaimed “I believe in nothing” (an interrelationship that is not unique in my experience!) He became captivated by the icons and architecture and music of the cathedrals of France (something I can easily relate to!) and at the age of 23, after a stop-start academic career, converted to Catholicism and joined a religious community.
I might change my mind about not embarking on a visual representation of the ‘Seeds’ in the future! I am quite keen to give it a go! My indecision was affirmed on reading, later on in the book: “You cannot be a person of faith unless you know how to doubt.” One of the few things I am certain of is that I doubt!
Nicole and I were talking last week about our presentations and (I think) in jest she suggested that the best way to present Thomas Merton would be by closing the curtains, switching off the lights and making everyone sit in darkness for 15 minutes before taking questions. ‘Many a true word’ as they say! In “Sharing the Fruits of Contemplation” – the 37th chapter of the book, Thomas Merton agrees with her:
“Often we will do much more to make others contemplatives 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. For when we are united with God in silence and darkness and when our faculties are raised above the level of their own natural activity and rest in the pure, tranquil, incomprehensible cloud that surrounds the presence of God, our prayer and the grace that is given to us tend of their very nature to overflow invisibly through the mystical body of Christ, and we who dwell together invisibly in the bond of the one Spirit of God affect one another more than we can ever realise by our own union with God, by our spiritual vitality in him.”
So, after that rather long pre-amble, I must address our topic;
What did I make of the book and what did it teach me about our relationship with God?
I think the first thing that appealed was the apparent simplicity underlying each of the ‘seeds’ and how this seemed to draw together so much that we have learned on this course - and so many other things I have heard or read or seen recently. A timeless and universal wisdom indeed! For instance, in Chapter 6 “Pray for you own discovery” Merton explains that God is in all things but he is not realised by all things. He says that to know God we must have God dwelling in us in a new way. The idea of ‘God in all things’ who we can try to reach by engaging in contemplative forms of prayer has been a recurring theme in most (if not all?) of the spiritual traditions we have encountered this year.
While in parts very complicated to understand (not necessarily in terms of the words used but the concepts that are being conveyed), so much of the book seemed “obvious” and “right”. A few parts of the text grated (mildly) – I will explain why later – but generally there was a “lightbulb moment” on every other page; for me at least (the caveats that run throughout Merton’s book seem to have rubbed off on me!) Near the centre of the book is a Chapter of “Sentences” (structured a bit like the books we have read on the wisdom of the Desert Fathers) which contain pages of Merton’s concepts presented in an easily digestible way. Perhaps this is a good place to start reading the “seeds” (especially if you have a limited attention span like me!)
Secondly, while the simplicity appealed, it was anything but naieve. Whilst this has been my only direct engagement with Thomas Merton’s writing and I know little about his life, I was left with the feeling that these words were based on lived experience. Merton had worked through the struggles and frustrations of which he writes. It is tempting to use the phrase “university of life” here - but which “life”?! I should probably borrow Merton’s words to add the caveat “life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive.” !
From the outset, when Merton begins to define what contemplation is, the complexity of the subject – and our relationship with God – is revealed. He urges the reader not to engage in a struggle of frenetic activity to try to find God - but to give space to realise what has already been given to us (another reminder of the need to recognise that we are not self-made, and to accept our dependence). In embracing this dependence we must also live and breathe our own limitations - and transform the way we engage with failure (which should not, he suggests, be equated with evil or sin). It is impossible for any of us to truly understand God.
It is clear from the first page that while the ultimate truth of faith as “the final meaning of human existence” may be unattainable, we can seek to get close - but can never do so as a result of answers to binary questions which we ask and answer in solitude. We are all diverse, multi-layered and complex beings. Each of us contains part of the answer to coming closer to God. We cannot find God alone – because we also need to find him in others. (You don’t go into the desert to get away from people, you go to know them better.)
Referencing St Paul, Merton explains that “Christianity is not a doctrine or system of beliefs but Christ living in and uniting in us.” The equality of this message very much appealed to me. The concept of interconnectedness has been a recurring theme in my own thinking about (and I hope, outward expression of) faith; ‘though we are many, we are one body.’ Merton’s words made me think of the mosaic I made last year when I was the ‘face of the Church of England on Twitter’ (!) The mosaic uses photos of people in my parish and the thousands of people who talked to me on Twitter, to create an image of Christ. http://onebodyonebread.blogspot.com/2017/11/though-we-are-many-we-are-one-body.html
I enjoyed reading Thomas Merton’s reflections on the Eucharist. In Chapter 22 “Life in Christ” Merton describes life as a “continual Mass” and says that in the Eucharist “Christ develops your life into himself like a photograph.” I thought this was a wonderful phrase, which has so many more layers of personal meaning when you discover (as Sophie explained to us) that Merton himself was a keen photographer (another interest we have in common!)
He goes on : “You keep finding this anonymous accomplice burning inside you like a deep and peaceful fire. Perhaps you will not be able completely to identify this presence and this continuous action going on within you unless it happens to be taking place formally on the altar before you: but at least then, obscurely, you will recognise in the breaking of the bread the stranger who was your companion yesterday and the day before.”
He goes on : “You keep finding this anonymous accomplice burning inside you like a deep and peaceful fire. Perhaps you will not be able completely to identify this presence and this continuous action going on within you unless it happens to be taking place formally on the altar before you: but at least then, obscurely, you will recognise in the breaking of the bread the stranger who was your companion yesterday and the day before.”
This chapter brought to mind a fascinating lecture I attended recently about the importance of “re-memberance” at the Eucharist, particularly for people with dementia. The lecture was given by Reverend Rob Merchant (my write-up is here http://onebodyonebread.blogspot.com/2018/02/becoming-forgetful-in-lent-discipleship.html) Referencing the writings of John Swinson and his excellent book on the subject, Rob Merchant explained that as we are all one body – all connected to each other and to the world and to God – to not fully enable those suffering from dementia to participate in the Eucharist means we are ‘dis-membering’ ourselves. (For dementia you could read anything which might on the surface prevent active participation in the sacrament; autism, disability, the list goes on).
The concepts of union and division are explored further by Merton in Chapter 7 where he references the cult of individuality (our faults are as timeless as the wisdom!) Merton says that we are all born in selfishness and that in order to become ‘contemplative’ we must die to this self-centredness; my natural tendency is to acquire more than you have. I have something you do not. I am ‘unique’. Merton explains that people who live like this live in a sense of permanent division – they are “individuals” not “persons”. To be a person – to be fully alive and to reach a contemplative state - requires a relationship with others and most of all with God. It requires us to accept and acknowledge our dependency, our frailness and our fragility.
Achieving this in a world which seems to be obsessed with cheating our frailness, fragility and death is difficult - and is a topic that I have been thinking about as a result of the recent (and for some controversial) Stations of the Cross Exhibition at my church this Lent, (which I wrote about here http://onebodyonebread.blogspot.com/2018/03/crucified-stormtrooper-wounds-that-abide.html)
The dependency Merton describes also means we are in relationship with a global community. I read Chapter 16 “The Root of War is Fear” on the day that we launched air strikes on Syrian targets following the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. It was written, of course, under the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War. Merton highlights the dangers of isolationism – when the whole world is “running away from the responsibility of thinking.” Dangers, he says, which are magnified by our innate desire to equate failure with sin, writing “it seems that no matter how elaborate and careful the planning, all attempts at international dialogue end in more and more ludicrous failures.” Sound familiar?! Again, he is not naieve about the “realities” (I use the word in all senses) of the situation. Merton says we can’t expect people to trust one another when they obviously cannot be trusted – or to come to believe that all politics is wrong (which he says would be a futile “evasion of responsibility”). But, he suggests, an acceptance that failure is not ‘evil’ and embracing the notion that we are all, in a sense, a “mysterious, unaccountable mixture of good and evil” would be the beginning of peace within ourselves and therefore, throughout the world.
Merton says that Hell is the place where the only common bond between us is hatred. The early church believed that a mark of Sainthood was the ability to live at peace with dangerous animals, such as lions and serpents. ‘All you need is love!’ to overcome fear and evil! This, and the political backdrop, brought to mind a story told to me by a friend who is an MP (and now well known as a rebellious one!) She was brought before the Chief Whip to explain herself, and on sitting down at his desk his pet spider in a glass box was pushed towards her. Drawing on some saint-like inner strength she opened the lid, picked up the tarantula and let it crawl all over her arm. Stunned, perhaps by her lack of fear, he did not bother her again.
Like the Chief Whip, we can all be easily enticed (controlled by) by fear. Merton speculates that our system of education doesn’t help matters – focussing more on teaching children about Hitler and Stalin rather than creative geniuses in art, music and literature who use their gifts to spread love and joy. Has focus this helped to reduce the number of despots in the world and increased the amount of joy?
Perhaps I am labouring the ‘connectedness’ point too far, but whilst nearing the end of this book, (perhaps craving some light relief!) I picked up another from the pile that I have not yet got round to reading – C.S.Lewis’s last book ‘Prayer : Letters to Malcolm’ which, it turned out, was published in the same year as New Seeds of Contemplation. C.S.Lewis started out as a non-believer but converted, reluctantly, to Christianity – although later in life than Thomas Merton. Both Lewis and Merton seemed to have a sense that reason and science could not answer the meaning and purpose of life – and both were, of course men of prayer - although they seemed to disagree on the best place for it! Merton writes;
“City churches are sometimes quiet and peaceful solitudes, caves of silence where one can seek refuge from the intolerable arrogance of the business world.” (So we’re in the right place today!) “One can be more alone, sometimes, in church than in a room I none’s own house….Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which people can take refuge. Places where they can kneel in silence. Houses of God, filled with his silent presence.”
Whereas C.S.Lewis explains ;
“I have had bad luck with churches. No sooner do I enter one and compose my mind than one or other of two things happens. Either someone starts practicing the organ. Or else, with resolute tread, there appears from nowhere a pious woman in elastic-side boots, carrying mop, bucket and dust-pan, and begins beating hassocks and rolling up carpets and doing things to flower vases. Of course (blessings on her) ‘work is prayer,’ and her enacted oratorio is probably worth ten times my spoken one. But it doesn’t help mine to become worth more.”
I guess Merton did say churches are “sometimes” peaceful! Always a caveat somewhere!
Perhaps because of the work I do, I was particularly captivated when I came across Merton’s commentary about ‘place’ like these. As another example, he writes:
“Where people live huddled together without true communication there seems to be greater sharing and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaningless of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking.”
“Where people live huddled together without true communication there seems to be greater sharing and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaningless of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking.”
This could be a commentary on how people live in monasteries, or hostels and student residences – or housing estates, or even offices today. I remember hearing an excellent talk by Douglas Board at St Stephen Walbrook titled “In an open plan office, can anyone hear you scream?” In the talk he used a slide (apparently not a set-up) showing a worker in an open plan office with a sign sellotaped to his back saying “DO NOT DISTURB”.
C.S.Lewis and Merton both seemed to share a deep interest in and affinity for ecumenism; concerned with the ‘catholic’ church in the widest sense and vehemently against ‘fundamentalism’ in all its forms.
Speaking of which, in Chapter 13 “The Moral Theology of the Devil” Merton explains that “it sometimes [more caveats!] happens that those who preach most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else in their minds except sin, are really unconscious haters of others. They think the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.” He describes such a message as “soul faith” a “quack theology” – something which is a danger in all types of church. Merton explains (again) that faith is not a sort of force that can come from dynamic will power or “profound conviction”. We are not self-made so cannot create our relationship with God alone. Such ‘faith’ inevitably puts our own will before God’s will and is practiced by “civilised medicine men” who use “God as their servant.”
As you might expect, he has words to say on chastity and self-control. In Chapter 12 “Pure Heart” he urges us not to be led by attachment to bodily desires or allow ourselves to be controlled by them, with a commentary on the impact of the rise of commercial television in the USA. It is in these passages that I found areas which seemed to ‘grate’ – perhaps I found them anachronistic and so they clouded the clarity of the message, or maybe I was simply missing the point. One example which set me off was the ‘city bad, nature good’ theme, which I did not find particularly helpful - or relevant - to me (although I recognise its scriptural roots, which come to the fore in the final chapter). Merton describes the world which Christ would not pray for as the “unquiet city of those who live for themselves and are therefore divided against one another in a struggle that cannot end.” This derogation of the positive value of the city and his polemic against TV (for which you could perhaps read any form of media today) seemed dated (rather than wrong) – and to my mind too dismissive of the opportunities for connectedness and inter-relationships offered by both. I reminded myself of Merton’s earlier words that we are all “mysterious, unaccountable mixture[s] of good and evil” – maybe not even a modern day prophet gets it right all the time?! Perhaps now I am falling into the trap of the “Devil’s Theology” which, according to Merton, is exaggerating distinctions to absolutes; I am right and everything and everyone else is wrong – and must be eliminated.
Another aspect I found challenging is Merton’s suggestion that it is preferable for us to “live in a state of mute protest.” Surely Christians must always vehemently fight against inequality and champion those on the margins and at the edge of society? It seems wrong to gag ourselves! Indeed Merton himself says in one of his “sentences” in Chapter 15 “You cannot believe in God unless you are capable of questioning the authority of prejudice, even though that prejudice may seem to be religious. Faith is not a blind conformity to prejudice - “prejudgement.” It is a decision, a judgement that is fully and deliberately taken in the light of a truth that cannot be proven. It is not merely the acceptance of a decision that has been made by somebody else”
In Chapter 24, we are reminded that Christ said “he who is not with me is against me” and that He also said “love your enemies.” This helped me realise that Merton is not suggesting that we turn our backs on the poor and needy (he says that to attain the integrity that leads to humility we must become like them) - any suggestion otherwise would be counter to our faith (Ubi Caritas; “where love and charity are, God is there.”) On reflection, I think he is suggesting we “mute” our individual protest; as I should have done. Championing such causes “personally” is desirable – however striving for what is right “personally” means doing so alongside and in relationship with others - even our enemies; realising that we can only find true reconciliation by acceptance of our mutual dependence on God. Merton was influenced by the early Desert Fathers and when reading this chapter I remembered what we learnt about Dorotheus of Gaza’s Wheel of Love – and that wonderful diagram showing that as we come closer to each other we come closer to God.
In “Learn to be Alone,” Thomas Merton highlights the danger of using unnecessary activity. Addressing those pre-disposed to this, he says : “interior solitude is impossible for them. They fear it. They do everything they can to escape it. What is worse, they try to draw everyone else into activities as senseless and as devouring as their own. They are great promoters of useless work. They love to organise meetings and banquets and conferences and lectures. They print circulars, write letters, talk for hours on the telephone in order that they may gather a hundred people together in a larger room where they will all fill the air with smoke and make a great deal of noise and roar at one another and clap their hands and stagger home at last patting one another on the back with the assurance that they have all done great things to spread the Kingdom of God.”
This sounds as if it could easily happen in any church. I don’t think I do this – every “activity” I have helped to organise has been, I hope, some way of “growing the Kingdom” – or has it just been growing my interpretation of it? I think I am pre-disposed for “doing” rather than “being” and perhaps that’s why this Chapter seems to have touched a raw nerve?!
Why are there 39 seeds and not 40? Who knows! The last chapter is both a summary of what has gone before and an invitation to a new life;
“we have the choice of two identities” Merton writes it is the “inner self that is taken up into the mystery of Christ, by his love, by the Holy Spirit, so that in secret we live “in Christ.””
Titled ‘The General Dance’ I recalled the joyous music and dancing of the final psalm. Merton ends;
“we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”
Who will lead?
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