In an episode of his podcast Turning to the Mystics, James Finley shares how he first encountered the work of Thomas Merton (1915–1968) and how it changed the course of his life. He says:
When I was at home growing up in Akron, Ohio with a violent, alcoholic father—like ongoing violent abuse—I was in the ninth grade at an all-boys Catholic school. . . . One of the instructors in the religion class mentioned monasteries. I’d never heard of monasteries before. Because of the role prayer played in my life to help me survive what was happening to me at home, I was already starting to get opened up that way. I was very taken by this idea of monasteries, that there were places you could go to, to seek God, and so on. And he talked about Thomas Merton. So, I went to the school library that day and they had one book by Merton, The Sign of Jonas, which is a journal he wrote in the monastery.
On the first page of that journal, he writes, “As for me, I have but one desire, the desire for solitude, to be lost in the secret of God’s face.” At fourteen years old, I didn’t know what it meant, but something in me did. . . . I got my own copy, and I read it over and over and over again. I thought it was so beautiful. I just sensed how true it was. Therefore, in the four years of high school, [while] the violence was still going on, I started writing to the monastery. . . . When I graduated from high school, I entered, and went in there, and then [Thomas] Merton was novice master. That’s how he got to be my spiritual director. I was eighteen years old.
Jim continues to explore how working with Merton allowed him to come to terms with his own story, while staying connected to God’s reality:
The reality of Thomas Merton made God’s unreality impossible to me. That is, [Merton’s] very reality was to me, the presence of God as a transformed person. I saw it in this ancient lineage of the mystics that he was that. I sat at his feet in the classical sense. . . .
I’d knock on his door, and he was always writing a book and he would sit and listen and talk, and it leveled the playing field for me, really, just absolutely in terms of compassion. And then [opened up by] that compassion, I told him about my desire for God. . . . Then he told me, he said, “Once in a while, you’ll find somebody to talk to about this, but they’re hard to find. They’re really hard to find.” And he said, “The purpose of this place is, it is a place meant to protect, to preserve, and cultivate this radical desire, as a charism in the world.” And then he offered me guidance in my own prayer.
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SEEK ME with your whole being. I desire to be found by you and I orchestrate the events of our life with that purpose in mind. When things go well and you are blessed, you can feel Me smiling on you. When you encounter rough patches along your life-journey, trust that My Light is still shining upon you. My reasons for allowing these adversities may be shrouded in mystery, but My continual Presence with you is an absolute promise. Seek Me in good times; seek Me in hard times. You will find Me watching over you all the time.
DEUTERONOMY 4:29; But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
HEBREWS 10:23; Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
PSALM 145:20; The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
PSALM 121:7–8; The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life; 8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 506). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
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