Thomas Merton, Part I<\/p>\n
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was born in France and lived most of his adult life as a Cistercian (Trappist) monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He died tragically in Bangkok of accidental electrocution. Merton has been a primary teacher and inspiration to me since I first read his book The Sign of Jonas in my high school seminary library around 1959. Merton almost single-handedly pulled back the veil and revealed the contemplative, mystical wisdom that had been lost in the Western Church for the last five centuries. He remains a spiritual master for many Christians and non-Christians to this day.
\nScott Peck explains that Merton \u201c\u2018left the world\u2019 for the monastery . . . because he was afraid of being contaminated by the world\u2019s institutionalized evil. . . . [But he] continued to consistently and passionately protest the sins of greater society. This burning desire to be in the world but not of the world is the mark of a contemplative.\u201d [1] James Finley, who learned from Merton for six years as a monk in Gethsemani, says Merton would tell him, \u201cWe don\u2019t come to the monastery to get away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world.\u201d [2] This can only be done by plugging into a larger consciousness through contemplation. No longer focused on our individual private perfection\u2014or what Merton called \u201cour personal salvation project\u201d\u2014we become fully usable by God.
\nMerton wrote, \u201cParadoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. . . . All life tends to grow like this, in mystery inscaped with paradox and contradiction, yet centered, in its very heart, on the divine mercy . . . and the realization of the \u2018new life\u2019 that is in us who believe, by the gift of the Holy Spirit.\u201d [3]
\nIt was in the power of this Spirit that Merton struggled against \u201cthe evil [that is also] in us all . . . [and] the blindness of a world that wants to end itself.\u201d He fought against violence, war, racism, poverty, and consumerism. He said, \u201cThose who continue to struggle are at peace. If God wills, they can pacify the world.\u201d [4]
\nMy friend, John Dear writes of Merton:
\nThe contemplative work of inner conversion, inner disarmament, and inner peacemaking as the key to peace for the world held Merton\u2019s interest throughout his life. It\u2019s what he admired most about Mahatma Gandhi, and what he tried to achieve for himself. . . . Merton observed that Gandhi\u2019s political revolution sprang from an inner, spiritual revolution of the heart. . . . Merton wrote . . . \u201cThe whole Gandhian concept of nonviolent action and satyagraha is incomprehensible if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of inner unity already achieved.\u201d [5]<\/p>\n
Gateway to Silence:
\nWe are all one with You.<\/p>\n
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The Nature of Degeneration<\/strong><\/em> Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned\u2026 \u2014Romans 5:12 Thomas Merton, Part I Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was born in France and lived most of his adult life as a Cistercian (Trappist) monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He died tragically in Bangkok of accidental electrocution. Merton has been a primary teacher and inspiration to me since I first read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16062,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions\/16062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBy Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n
\nThe Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man\u2019s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away\u2014 an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, \u201cI am my own god.\u201d This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis\u2014 my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).
\nSin is something I am born with and cannot touch\u2014 only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. \u201cThis is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light\u2026\u201d (John 3:19).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"