What to read today.
Chapter 1: What is Contemplation?
Questions for your personal reflection.
In what ways was this chapter challenging?
How does Merton’s notion of contemplation differ
from yours?
Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today?
This was a troubling chapter; even assuming that I understand what Merton is talking about. Does contemplation have to involve “faith”? Must it imply an external and/or personal God who does things like create, call, will or give gifts? Why isn’t it sufficient to speak of “spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being” without reference to a deity?
Posted by Genevieve.
Posted by Second Thoughts:
ReplyDeleteI am trying to understand my resistance to Chapter 1 and it has nothing to do with Merton's use of masculine nouns like sons and sonship. I am puzzling over his pronouncement that contemplation "is the religious apprehension of God". That sounds a lot more confining and definite than the "spiritual wonder" he opens with - and a lot less appealing to me. So Merton raises some interesting questions: If contemplation doesn't involve the apprehension of God, is it just "a kind of self-hypnosis, resulting from concentration on our own inner spiritual being"? Who is to say that our own inner spiritual being is distinct from God, anyway?
post by William
DeleteYes that's a good question- our own inner experience should/could be divine and not necessarily distict from God.
I too have a resistance to Chapter 1 - in part because I found it somewhat contradictory. Perhaps that is the point, contemplation is undefinable. If I were to define it I would use terms of relationship. Surely one can be contemplative (relational) about their own life and the life around them without accessing a divine image or power?
ReplyDeleteFrom Second Thoughts
DeleteI'm inclined to agree. I think one can be contemplative without accessing a divine image or power, as in Buddhism which is a valid religion but not a theistic one. Merton was writing through the lens of Christianity and from his own monastic context (where his letters and writings were monitored by superiors). That said, I think he gives us something to think about when he points out that contemplation is not just about navel gazing and self-absorption. We have to be relating to something bigger than ourselves, whatever we call that.
From Genevieve
DeleteI know what you mean about Merton being contradictory. He seems to double back on himself elsewhere in the book. I am reading the journals of John Howard Griffin, who was Merton's biographer and friend. and who got access to Merton's unedited papers after Merton's death. Griffin said that even though Merton was a writer by vocation, his focus was on having experiences and clarifying them in his private writings. Publicly Merton only gave hints or clues about his actual experiences and Griffin says that this accounts for the fact that Merton gives the impression of contradiction and ambivalence. That explanation never occurred to me; as I reader I was just getting frustrated.
post by William
ReplyDeleteThis was a difficult chapter to start with- but maybe that was the point. I found it hard to grasp the concept of contemplation as other than the abstract idea of" here is a question-think about an answer"
However I believe his comment about "I AM" broke a logjam for me - You could contemplate while walking, talking, working- the absolute important thing was to be present to experience the immediate reality in all its splendour- truly a gift- the "trick" will be to see if I can do it
From Second Thoughts
DeleteThis is helpful. Does I AM mean being fully there from moment to moment, taking it all in with gratitude and awe, and without evaluating or assessing the world? If that's what Merton means by contemplation, then by definition contemplation involves being in the world and not being isolated.