Monk?

I came across this journal entry of Thomas Merton written on March 2, 1966.  It is from a compilation of Merton’s journalistic writings, titled The Intimate Merton, edited by Br. Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo.  It is so universal, as was so much of Merton’s writing, and thus so appropriate to our own time, a time of uncertainty, which causes us to wonder if we will survive, and to think. perhaps, that ours is a unique age.  Every age has its uniqueness, but underneath it all things remain very much the same.  As Merton says…

A flash of sanity: the momentary realization that there is no need to come to certain conclusions about persons, events, conflicts, trends, even trends toward evil and disaster, as if from day to day and even from moment to moment I had to know and declare (at least to myself) that this is so and so, this is good, this is bad.  We are heading for a “new era” or we are heading for destruction.  What do such judgments mean?  Little or nothing.  Things are as they are in an immense whole of which I am a part and which I cannot pretend to grasp.  To say I grasp it is immediately to put myself in a false position, as if I were “outside” it.  Whereas to be in it is to seek truth in my own life and actions, moving where movement is possible and keeping still when movement is unnecessary, realizing that things will continue to define themselves and that the judgments and mercies of God will clarify themselves and will be more clear to me if I am silent and attentive, obedient to His will, rather than constantly formulating statements in this age which is smothered in language, in meaningless and inconclusive debate in which, in the last analysis, nobody listens to anything except what agrees with his own prejudices.

I find this very reassuring.  And I believe what Merton says here is true and full of insight for us and people of every age.  We are living in a time of deep disquiet, but as Merton says this is the place we inhabit always, and any thought that we can corral this bewilderment with our with our craftily constructed declarations is foolishness, an evasion from reality.  Why is this?  I think at bottom it is because we are not in control and we struggle against admitting it.  We don’t want to concede how little control we actually have.  The latest reminder is the implosion of our global economic architecture.  It’s all tumbling down around us, and the news is frightening.  Merton reminds us that this is an opportunity to recall who we really are: children of God, and it would benefit us if we stop our frenetic activities trying to define everything and answer that which is beyond our answering, and rest in God, and that his “judgments and mercies… will clarify themselves and will be more clear to me if I am silent and attentive, obedient to His will…”

Take heart, things are the same from age to age, just the players change.

The real monk, the one who’s deepest desire (God) is in line with the way he lives, is a smasher of idols. And the biggest idol he smashes is the notion that being called a monk means he is somehow special or different from others. He doesn’t pretend he is a monk, because he knows he’s just trying, and always will be trying to be what a monk is supposed to be. He’s on the way to being a monk, a lover of God (meaning lover also of all His creation) and never will arrive fully at his destination until he moves on to the Holy City. He can laugh at the notion that appearing different because he lives in a special sort of place, living a lifestyle different from most others, means he is actually different from anyone.

There is a wonderful meditation on this idol smashing in the book Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life by Mary Margaret Funk, OSB, where she reflects on her own life as a Benedictine nun:

If I’m serious about searching for God, I must undress before myself, knowing that really I’m not a nun, yet. I’m just pretending until the nun-form takes shape. I know deep down that all images of myself must be smashed and destroyed. I dread the process of unmasking my hollowness and all my illusions. They protect me from myself. But now thoughts that protect my illusions have to go. (Continuum 2001, p. 71)

And that’s it! All illusions about ourselves, all the tags we use define ourselves with, must go, be utterly destroyed, if we are to become our real selves, children of God, lovers of life, of all, of God. And that’s what faithful monks do, hidden away in their monasteries; they smash the idol of differentness, of uniqueness, of specialness, they smash the idol of monk.

Here is a reflection titled, Discernment in the Blogdom of God on the use of blogs in one’s faith life. Very interesting and worth a look, from Deacon’s Blog, by Rev. Mr. Jim Konicki, of The Polish National Catholic Church.

It is good that I have been out to the common work more often, even though I nearly set the whole forest on fire yesterday burning brush out by Saint Gertrude’s field on the slope nearest the lake.

Wind … flames springing up in the leaves across the creek like the spread of attachments in an unmortified soul!

So, confortetur cor tuum et viriliter age!* Here are the things to be done:
Many lights burning ought to be put out.
Kindle no new fires. Live in the warmth of the sun.

*(do manfully, and let your heart take courage. Ps 26:14)

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas, March 10, 1951, The Saturday before Passion Sunday

On the face of it, the monastic life is a very ordinary life; it is a life of routine, simplicity, regularity. In fact, its very predictability is one of the great challenges for the monk, becoming the place where he encounters himself and the truth of it is revealed. Sometimes it’s not a pleasant discovery.

But the truth is we all live by routines. I have to get up at the same time on workdays and get to work on time and put in a full day’s effort, not leaving the office until it’s time. I take the same route to and from work. I work with the same people day in and day out, and perform the same tasks, more or less, each day. There’s some variety, but the overall schedule is there and needs to be followed. The routines at home are very much the same as well from day to day.

So what’s the big deal about the patterns of the monastic life; after all we all follow some kind of “program” in life? Well, there’s one fundamental difference that make the monk unique. There is no vacation from the sameness of the monk’s day. Just like the rest of us he gets up, goes to work, etc., but with a difference. He knows he won’t be going on to the web to check out the best deals on flights to the Bahamas for a week’s break. He’ll be getting up and going through his day as he has since entering the monastery, and will until one day they bury him. This fact is both a great weight and a key to liberation; one is not possible without the other.

Most of us, especially in the developed countries, spend a lot of our time looking for creative and stimulating ways to distract and entertain ourselves so that we don’t have to face the sameness of much of our existence. The monastic, by contrast, not only doesn’t have the multiplicity of opportunities to avoid the tediousness of much of life, he wilingly takes it on, embracing it, knowing it is a door through which he is let go of self-preoccupation and concern as someone who has a special “claim” on happiness at the expense of others.

The routine of the monk’s life is yet another tool designed by the great authors of the monastic life – Antony, Pacomius, Benedict, Basil – and written into their rules of life, to confront the demons of selfishness which prevent us all from encountering the depths of our need for love and to love. It’s here we’re all called to be, called by the great liberator, Jesus, to be friends of God. The monk hears the call and freely gives up all the “interesting” choices life has to offer, takes up his cross of ordinariness and discovers what real freedom is.

I wonder how many people are going through life unaware of their true vocation. The great Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton reflected on this question as a failure to understand our true identity as children of God in the following quote:

The seeds of this sublime life are planted in every
Christian at Baptism. But seeds must grow and develop
before you reap the harvest. There are thousands of
Christians walking about the face of the earth bearing in
their bodies the infinite God of whom they know practically
nothing. They are themselves children of God, and are not
aware of their identity. Instead of seeking to know
themselves and their true dignity, they struggle miserably
to impersonate the alienated characters whose “greatness”
rests on violence, craftiness, lust and greed. … God does
not manifest Himself to these souls because they do not seek
Him with any real desire. … But desire is the most
important thing in the contemplative life. Without desire
we will never receive the great gifts of God.
Thomas Merton, Inner Experience, unpublished MS., Abbey of Gethsemani, p. 35. Also found in What is Contemplation?, p. 16 & 23.

If there are many who fail to see their true identity as resting in God’s love for them, then there surely are those who fail to understand how this love plays out in the particularity of their own life. The first step, as Merton points out, is desire; without it nothing happens, with it, anything is possible.

If you don’t have it then the first step is to pray for the desire to desire your true identity. If you can see the need for this then God’s already answered your prayer!

Abbey of the Genesee - Gatehouse and Church

“The hairs on your head are far easier to count than your feelings and the movement of your heart” (St. Augustine, Confessions 4.15)

The whole of the monastic life is founded on desire, the desire to know oneself and the God who knows us all. St. Augustine makes it very clear though how difficult a journey it is when he says it is far easier to count the number of hairs on your head than to achieve anything close to communion with self and God.

But you know the truth is we don’t achieve anything when it comes to the life of the spirit, because it is the Spirit who does the doing not we with our programs for growth. Don’t mistake me; we do figure into the equation, just not in the way many of us want to. We want to be in control and in charge of the itinerary don’t we. It usually takes repeated turns in the wrong direction to finally figure out that if we don’t let go of the steering wheel we’ll just keep going ’round in circles. Some of us never do let go…

We don’t have to figure everything out though and that should, if we accept it, be a source of liberation, and is itself a profound step toward self-knowledge. That’s really what humility is all about; simple, but not easy, and a step we must repeat frequently throughout life.

If the desire is there then we can do some things to facilitate God’s work in us, opening our heart to our true selves, and freeing us to be more truly with Him, Who is always and everywhere with us. I suggest as a first step a retreat, preferably at some monastic site where you will not be disturbed and where the process can begin, if that’s the place you’re at, or, where it can loosen up the soil of a difficulty you may be experiencing in your journey toward the truth. The silence, the supportive community of monks and of the other retreatants, and best of all the uncluttered time to be without the accouterments of your everyday life.

The Abbey of the Genesee is the monastery I know best, and I highly recommend going there for retreat. It’s a great place to meet God and hand the keys over to Him! Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about Genesee’s retreat program, or just visit their retreat page on their web site.