Thomas Merton: Essential Writings Book

During this COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, I have found myself drawn to the writings of monks from various monastic traditions. There's something about sheltering-in-place that makes me want to learn from those who have learned to live with solitude and silence. First I read a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen Buddhist master who focuses on mindfulness. Then I read a book by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, who writes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition as practiced on Mount Athos in Greece.

Now I've turned to Thomas Merton, the well-known Roman Catholic monk, author and poet. I've read a few things by Merton over the years, including his most famous book, "The Seven Storey Mountain." But I think this little volume, 191 pages, entitled "Essential Writings," does the best job I've seen so far of giving the reader an overview of Merton's thoughts and writings spanning his monastic career. (My first encounter with Merton was in 1969, when I was 19 years old investigating the pacifist roots of the Christian faith. I picked up Merton's booklet entitled "Blessed Are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence," published by the Catholic Peace Fellowship. The entire contents of this booklet are included in these "Essential Writings.")

This volume is divided into three sections, in addition to the preface and a brief biography of Merton's life: contemplation, compassion and unity. The selections are presented, more or less, in chronological order, giving the reader some insight into the development of his thinking over the years. I have a friend who says that Merton "went off the deep end" near the end of his life. But I dare say that my friend probably didn't read what Merton wrote. This book assures me that Merton never strayed from the Christian tradition, even while trying to engage in dialogue with monks and mystics from other traditions.

Below are favorite quotes.

CONTEMPLATION

"For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self (p. 55)."

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul (p. 57)."

"There is another essential aspect of Christianity: the interior, the silent, the contemplative, in which hidden wisdom is more important than practical organizational science, and in which love replaces the will to get visible results (p. 67)."

"Ideally speaking, the hermit life is supposed to be the life in which all care is completely put aside (p. 68)."

"A Christian can realize himself called by God to periods of silence, reflection, meditation, and 'listening.'…Perhaps it is very important, in our era of violence and unrest, to rediscover meditation, silent inner unitive prayer, and creative Christian silence (p. 73)."

"We recognize the need to be at home with ourselves in order that we may go out to meet others, not just with a mask of affability, but with real commitment and authentic love (p. 75)."

"The purest faith has to be tested by silence in which we listen for the unexpected, in which we slowly and gradually prepare for the day when we will reach out to a new level of being with God (p. 76)."

"If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology (p. 78)."

"He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world, without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others (p. 86)."

COMPASSION

"…we can no longer assume that because a man is 'sane' he is therefore in his 'right mind.' The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless (p. 99)."

"The demonic sickness of Auschwitz emanated from ordinary people, stimulated by an extraordinary regime…(p. 103)."

"Christians must become active in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight against war. First of all there is much to be studied, much to be learned. Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be explained as a practical method, and not left to be mocked as an outlet for crackpots who want to make a show of themselves. Prayer and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like all weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and against war. This implies that we are also willing to sacrifice and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our relations with other people (p. 106)."

"Thus we never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggressivity and hypocrisy (p. 109)."

"For only love'which means humility'can exorcise the fear which is at the root of all war (p. 111)."

"I do not mean to imply that prayer excludes the simultaneous use of ordinary human means to accomplish a naturally good and justifiable end (p. 112)."

"So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed'but hate these things in yourself, not in another (p. 114)."

"War is our enemy (p. 115)."

"The real crimes of modern war are committed not at the front (if any) but in war offices and ministries of defense in which no one ever has to see any blood unless his secretary gets a nosebleed (p. 120)."

"A nonviolent victory, while far more difficult to achieve, stands a better chance of curing the illness instead of contracting it (p. 122)."

"Christian nonviolence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the basic unity of man (p. 124)."

"And if the Spirit dwells in us and works in us, our lives will be continuous and progressive conversion and transformation in which we also, in some measure, help to transform others and allow ourselves to be transformed by and with others, in Christ (p. 125)."

"The beatitudes are simply aspects of love. They refuse to despair of the world and abandon it to a supposedly evil fate which it has brought upon itself. Instead, like Christ himself, the Christian takes upon his own shoulders the yoke of the Savior, meek and humble of heart. This yoke is the burden of the world's sin with all its confusions, and all its problems. These sins, confusions and problems are our very own. We do not disown them (p. 134)."

UNITY

"If I can unite in myself…I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians…If we want to bring together what is divided, we can not do so by imposing one division upon the other or absorbing one division into the other (p 141)."

"Every man, to live a life full of significance, is called simply to know the significant interior of life and to find ultimate significance in its proper inscrutable existence, in spite of himself, in spite of the world and appearances, in the Living God (pp. 144-145)."

"…those who travel most see the least (p. 145)."

"For my own part I consider myself neither a conservative nor an extreme progressive. I would like to think I am what Pope John was'a progressive who wants to preserve a very clear and marked continuity with the past and not make silly and idealistic compromises with the present'yet to be completely open to the modern world while retaining the clearly defined, traditionally Catholic position (p. 150)."

"Western civilization is now in full decline into barbarism (a barbarism that springs from within itself) because it has been guilty of a twofold disloyalty: to God and to Man (p. 152)."

"Since the Word was made Flesh, God is in man. God is in all men. All men are to be seen and treated as Christ (p. 152)."

"It is my belief that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in the part of humanity that is most remote from our own (p. 153)."

"If the Lord of all took flesh and sanctified all nature, restoring it to the Father by His resurrection, we too have our work to do in extending the power of the resurrection to the whole world of our time by our prayer, our thought, our work and our whole life (p. 156)."

"We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves (p. 157)."

"One must cling to one tradition and to its orthodoxy, at the risk of not understanding any tradition. One cannot supplement his own tradition with little borrowings here and there from other traditions. On the other hand, if one is genuinely living his own tradition, he is capable of seeing where other traditions say and attain the same thing, and where they are different. The differences must be respected, not brushed aside, even and especially where they are irreconcilable with one's own view (p. 167)."

"…it is illuminating to the point of astonishment to talk to a Zen Buddhist from Japan and to find that you have much more in common with him than with those of your own compatriots who are little concerned with religion, or interested only in its external practice (p. 171)."

"…I think we have now reached a stage of (long overdue) religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian and Western monastic commitment, and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience (pp. 174-175).

EPILOGUE

"The Christian must have the courage to follow Christ. The Christian who is risen in Christ must dare to be like Christ: he must dare to follow conscience even in unpopular causes. He must, if necessary, be able to disagree with the majority and make decisions that he knows to be according to the Gospel and teaching of Christ, even when others do not understand why he is acting this way… (p. 189)."