Sam Rahberg
08/08/03Merton #1
Stories and Illuminations
The genius of Merton's work to communicate his own transformative experience will be illustrated in this essay by eight excerpts from A Vow of Conversation. The first set of four reveal Merton's personal transformation through story and the second set of four reveal more direct reflections or illuminations. The first four stories include (1) a day of emotional hangover, (2) plans for hermitages in Bell Hollow, (3) a disagreement with abbot and (4) the death of Malcolm X.
"When I got back and calmed down the other evening, I realized that I was being very enthusiastic and unreasonable. All day Epiphany I had a sort of emotional hangover from that day out in Bell Hollow."
Merton spent a day in early January of 1964 in the beautiful hills near his monastery in Kentucky. Within solitude he found deep company with God amidst the leafless pear trees, clear springs, the shining sun and trails. The sheer length of this day's entry (over three published pages) comparatively marks this as one of the most significant days he recorded. "Never was there such a day," 6 January concludes. On 8 January, a little over a day later, Merton records his "emotional hangover." The day following his mountain top experience was a valley of frustration. It began to subside, incidentally, after he "sat at the top of the field next to the hermitage…in the sun." He is offering the reader a clue to the ups and downs of the contemplative experience. Days will come that will be inspiring and days will follow when one experiences the full frustrations of being human. True transformation is a process over time and authenticity develops by grace as it is tested. This is the honest, practical and personal Merton teaching the way of the spiritual life.
"But when I think of all this dealing and organizing and planning and so on and the institution that might finally result, the whole thing becomes much less interesting. Would I be a fool if I went along with this?"
Father Abbot, Brother Nicholas, Edelin, and an unnamed someone are now in dialogue with Merton about building a group of hermitages in the valley he loves so much. Of course the planning is crowded with details, options, and problems to solve. Compound the details with the obvious challenge that four added people add to Merton's solitude and he begins to lose interest. In fact he wonders if he would be "a fool to go along with it." The remainder of the entry affirms the many benefits and privileges of his current situation without the added hassle that this planning is bringing. His silence of contemplative experience is percolating into the dialogues and conversations. One can almost imagine the moment when Merton realized how he was being drawn in to a bundle of un-necessities and felt a sudden detachment and desire to pray. He hints through this story that the contemplative experience will nudge a person to re-evaluate situations. Perhaps the call will begin as a discomfort. Maybe it will surface as a frustration or sense of detachment. This is the way that silence and participation in that which is eternal works its way into one's being and filters out superficialities.
(3) a disagreement with abbot
"I must admit that over Sunday I was troubled by the whole business of that refused permission."
Merton had been invited to a meeting at Collegeville and the abbot denied him permission to attend. The abbot offered various reasons, but Merton perceived the real issue to be "just emotion on the part of the abbot." Initially, the exchange and Merton's reflection depict a level of admirable maturity that enabled Merton to differentiate himself and see the situation with clarity. Then, defense by defense, his frustration rises…the abbot has "confused motives"…"he thinks my humility would be deflowered." On a determined note he concludes, "I have to learn to accept this without resentment…So that is the vow of obedience." Another day of passive-aggressive behavior on the part of the abbot left him unsettled to say the least. This experience again communicates the priceless face of authenticity. Merton the contemplative has not arrived at perfection. He is frustrated with the situation and with himself for his reaction. Transformation is ongoing conversion.
"It has been a strange day. I end it by writing with dermal gloves on…"
"In the mail, too there are some letters from some fanatics of varying degree, who don't like me."
"Malcolm X, the Negro radical, has been murdered."
Whether divine coincidence or the contemplative experience in action, adjusting the filter of Merton's watchful eye, the events of 24 February 1964 seem to be profoundly interwoven. The word that mysteriously never appears in this passage is "martyr." Consider Merton, whose vocation called him to write by hand, grasping a pen with cracked hands, "My hands hurt" (italics original). It is not unlike Paul's thorn in his side. Is Merton, in a sense, experiencing martyrdom? Is he bearing witness through the pain? The next paragraph in his journal hints he may have made this connection. The brothers informed him, "'It's a good thing that that fellow that wanted to kill you has gone away.' Apparently someone in the guesthouse was breathing fire and brimstone on my account." Some letters he had received also contained varying degrees of disapproval. Later that night, Merton reflects upon his own mortality, "I thought peacefully of death and accepted the fact that very possibly some madman might come up here one night and do me in and, if that is the way it is to be, I am glad to accept it from God's hand. He will give me the grace to die pleasing to him." The reader senses the contemplative experience at work transforming anxiety into peace. Amazing. Yet, perhaps there is an authentic fear behind it all: "Malcolm X, the Negro radical, has been murdered." Just news for the day or evidence of reality's interconnectedness through the eyes of a contemplative?
The next four excerpts associate the reader with the illuminations of Merton's contemplative experience a little more explicitly. They include (1) considering monastic ideals, (2) the error of racism, (3) the organic dynamic of the Mass and (4) the way of being as non-assertion.
"One assumes that the ideal was once fully real and actually lived in a golden age and, thus, one claims to have every reason for resentment at the unrealization of what cannot be and never was real."
Merton's perspective at this stage of his life is broadening to recognize the self-deception of idealism. He quotes Jasper and makes a correlation to romanticizing monasticism, "'The man who keeps faith with reality wants to act truthfully in the here and now, not to derive a secondhand here and now from a purpose.'" Ultimately, Merton contends, the contemplative is transformed to face reality and rest in God. Authenticity is at stake. If one cannot embrace reality, it cannot be transformed. Criticizing his fellow monks, Merton writes, "monks are becoming incapable of accepting and resting in anything. Yet they do not really seek God, they seek a perfect monasticism." The pursuit of God is truthful, authentic action. To blind oneself with pious hopes for something better yet to come is only a distraction of energies and potential. In writing these words Merton has placed a warm, calming hand on the should of the reader as if to say, "Stop. . . Now be you."
"The error of racism is the logical consequence of an essentialist style of thought. Finding out what a man is and then nailing him down to his definition so that he can never change."
Few topics could have stirred more emotion than civil rights at the time of this reflection. People were grappling (and still grapple) with the baggage of stereotypes burned and sewn into their worldviews. Merton takes the deception of racism head on, "…our rigid definition predicates of a Negro. And so the logical machine can grind him down and devour him because of his essence." The language he chooses, "rigid…machine…grind…devour", points to a feeling-less, thoughtless, inanimate bundle of parts capable of demeaning and destroying a flesh and blood creature. This ugliness needs transformation. Merton does not sling words at extremists, but speaks to the hidden element in each reader that is shamefully brought under the light. One dares not pass these words without praying for a purging, purifying grace to transform the inner person. Only after individuals have been debrided of racism can the whole of our community experience healing. The eyes of this contemplative see through the symptoms of racism to the heart, chides the temptation to delegate the solution, and initiates a call to courageously turn and face this and any social issue.
"One needs to see the Mass celebrated by priests who have thought out the new implications and experienced their meaning…the organic significance of what is going on."
The monastery had experienced a change in the liturgy that Merton accepted only with hesitation. In fact the lack of fluidity may well have stirred his reflections this day, "There is no question now that the Mass ends too abruptly." As a contemplative, he expresses the deep value of the priests being formed in the whole celebration with an appreciation for the interdependent parts--priests who have "experienced their meaning." Authenticity calls for transformation that leads to transparency in leadership, opening the deep well of meaning for the assembly. On cannot help but tease out his parallel to life. Merton embodied the search for life's meaning in God and developed a sensibility for the organic, global whole. His transparency opens the well of meaning for the reader. Paradoxically, this transparency was fed by the quiet of his hermitage.
"The judgement: those who have turned their hate against God have in reality destroyed themselves in striving, in their own manner to assert themselves. The way to "being" is then the way of non-assertion. This is God's way."
Merton here articulates a great mystery. He does not choose to illustrate his point with a story and he does not avoid the topic silently. With pen and paper he boldly scribes the way toward God: in asserting oneself one is destroyed; thus the way to God is non-assertion. It is Good Friday, 1964 with the image of the crucified Jesus before his eyes that Merton writes about non-assertion. Speaking to the floods of people striving for God, he assures the contemplative simply"…it is the way He has revealed for us." It is the submission of Jesus and the contemplation of this Passion that daily and richly enlivens the search for God. This means that contemplation, Merton cautions, is not the tool of self-assertion in order to delineate oneself from the world, but the grace of emptying oneself to rest in God's fullness. This monk has taken us to the deepest point of meaning to teach the way of contemplation…Jesus Christ crucified and raised.
(Alternative Intro and Conclusion)
Lampposts
Thomas Merton writes from the unpaved path of contemplative experience. Incredibly, our world as whole barely knows this path exists, yet there are figures along the way who mark the trail. Anne Carr unveils Merton's focus on authentic personal transformation in the introduction she wrote for Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master. The contemplative path nurtures a disciplined, genuine commitment to seek God and to know oneself in such a way that one and the world are transformed. Few are those, social dysfunction makes it seem, who are called to walk the path. Fewer still those who are called to shed light on the paths of others. Somehow Merton is graced with the ability and clarity to be kindled with the leading minds of his age and draw sparks from within even the common reader. The dark and solitary path of contemplation holds close the edge of a lake where lampposts shine here and there. The space between is dark enough to stumble. At each lamppost Merton finds insight and inspiration that spurs ongoing transformation. This is his personal, intimate contemplative experience that fuels his language for those around him. The lamppost itself is beyond words and is yet is far from the original. A Vow of Conversation glows for the sake of the reader's own transformation. At times Merton uses stories or experiences through which the light percolates. His experience rises, like a bubble under water, to the surface. At other times Merton speaks directly to the profound, thereby welcoming us to his lighted path. It is the light of his lampposts along the transformative path of contemplation that indirectly or directly brightens our journey toward authenticity in God.
Thomas Merton, through story and direct reflection, clears the lampposts along the contemplative path. His authentic transformation testified through written word to the role of an individual within community and the larger global context. In some ways, he used indirect stories to welcome us into his own unique journey of growth, change, and insight. He also employed direct, concrete reflection to unite us and illuminate our walk through issues we share in common. Merton himself serves as a lamppost that brightens the contemplative path of authentic personal transformation for the sake of the world.