To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls “working out our salvation,” is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears.  It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation. We do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be…

Thomas Merton- New Seeds of Contemplation

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Thomas Merton - Seeds of Contemplation Available from Samantha - $18

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From the publisher:

If you read nothing else by Merton, read this. Personal, direct, and lucid, it contains some of his most challenging insights into the struggle to find an honest relationship with God and one’s fellow humans.

The book takes a compelling yet thoughtful look at a wide variety of spiritual themes, but is — like most of Merton’s writings — devoid of theorizing. A must for anyone who is ready to seriously reassess the reality and direction of his or her life. But beware: you will not emerge untouched.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012 

What to read for today. 

Chapter 23:The Woman Clothed With The Sun

Questions for your personal reflection. 

To what extent did you find the ideas in this chapter meaningful and accessible?  Was there anything that you found yourself resisting? 

Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today? 

In the story of the Annunciation Mary is, for me, a person who says an unqualified yes to whatever comes her way. I got the same sense from Merton. He describes her as being devoid of egotism but full of the humility and poverty that are necessary for contemplation. And at this stage in the book I have begun to understand why Merton urges us to “disappear from our own self-conscious consideration” and “be accounted as nothing by the world.” Mary is a model for this way of being. It is possible to see her in this light whether or not one believes in the mythological motifs of the virgin birth and the assumption into heaven.

Posted by Genevieve

Monday, March 19, 2012 

What to read for today. 

Chapter 22:Life in Christ

Questions for your personal reflection. 

Can you identify anything that you are trying to escape from as a means of evading your own true nature and countenance?

Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today? 

This chapter did not evoke any sense of escape for me.  Instead, I was caught by the idea that nothing is more important than one’s interior life and that the only things that matter are ones that support that life.  “If I have divine life in me, what do the accidents of pain and pleasure, hope and fear, joy and sorrow matter to me?” And then Merton points out that this divine life gets radiated back out to others so that we benefit each other.  I do not think that one has to be a “believer” in Christ or anything else in order to find this compelling.

Posted by Genevieve.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Pause Day

Saturday, March 19, 2012

What to read for today.  

Chapter 21:The Mystery of Christ

Questions for your personal reflection. 

Merton writes, “But Christian contemplation is supremely personlistic”.  

Do you understand what that means? Is it helpful or instructive to you?

Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today? 

This reading study is teaching me so much but in this chapter I stumbled over the assumptions that Merton makes about who is a Christian and what Christianity has to mean. How does he know that “all experience of God comes to us through Christ”?  And why must “the normal way to contemplation [be] a belief in Christ…born of thoughtful consideration of His life and His teachings”?  Merton spills a lot of ink in an attempt to integrate dogma and contemplation. I kept wondering why he went to all that trouble. Perhaps he was originally speaking to a more restrictive audience.   In any event, I decided to take his advice, “avoid what gets in your way”!

Posted by Genevieve.

Friday, March 16, 2012   

What to read for today. 

Chapter 20:Tradition and Revolution

Questions for your personal reflection. 

Have you found yourself unsettled by Merton’s words in this or any other chapter?  Or simply in disagreement with them?  

Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today? 

The first time I read this chapter I thought it was a defence of dogma and the teaching authority of the church, which I found to be intriguing and amusing in equal parts. But when I read it again (several times) I started to see so much else.  Like the idea that Christianity is fully revealed but not yet fully understood or fully lived.  Like the idea that each succeeding generation has to rediscover Christianity and return to the source.  Or that the revolution to which Christianity points is an extermination of our false selves instead of the extermination of other people.  So one of the big lessons for me in this chapter is not being so quick to judge what Merton is saying.

Posted by Genevieve.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

What to read for today.           

Chapter 19:From Faith to Wisdom           

Questions for your personal reflection.

Back to the word “faith”.  Is this an adequate word for what Merton is trying to convey?           

Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today?

I found myself wishing that Merton had used a substitute for “faith” or eliminated it altogether because once again I sensed confusion or contradiction.  If faith is “the incorporation of the unknown and the unconscious into our daily life” I’m all for it. On the other hand, if faith is “acceptance of truths proposed by authority” I’m a lot less interested.  Besides, in Chapter 15 Merton suggested that “blind conformity to a decision made by someone else” was the mark of an immature Christian. 

Posted by Genevieve.