Friday, March 23, 2012
What to read for today.
Chapter 26:Freedom Under Obedience
Questions for your personal reflection.
What role does obedience play in your spiritual life? Is this a “prudent use” of your freedom?
Sharing with others: What caught your attention or provoked your thinking today?
I am not, and do not aspire to be obedient. Nor do I yearn to be led and advised and directed by someone else. That is why I do not seek ordination to the priesthood and why I am indifferent to the conventional profession in which I am trained. My attitude may have something to do with choice of environment. Merton’s was vertical and hierarchical. He was, after all, a monk in a monastic order. Mine is horizontal with give and take between equals. My personal and business relationships evolve according to circumstances and the people involved. Nevertheless, Merton raises a provocative question: Is this horizontal context just a way to assert my own will and indulge in my own caprices?
Posted by Genevieve
obedience and withdrawal from the cares of the world seem antithetical to me- surely Christ would have us in and of the world
ReplyDeletepost by william
But I think Merton is telling us to be in the world. He has warned many times about using contemplation as an escape. In today's chapter Merton is clearly saying that we must be involved with other people. He's also saying that we demonstrate our Christianity by how we behave in the world. It's just that we are not supposed to get too caught up in the world.
DeleteSo being in the world, yes. Being of the world seems to be another story.
Second thoughts.
Posted by Second Thoughts
ReplyDeleteThe part that stood out for me today was not the part about obedience. It was Merton's comments about living with other people and the need to lose ourselves in understanding and appreciating them. I think he is right on the money when he says that there is no better education for an interior life than the patience and humility necessary to get along with others. It is easy to crawl off into a corner and think happy thoughts. It is so much harder to be accountable to other people and to have to take them into account. Try staying centred then.
Merton says two really important things about being involved with other people.. First, that dealings with them on the outside should be a reflection of our inside life. "Everything [the contemplative] does outside of contemplation ought to reflect the luminous tranquility of his interior life." Secondly, he says to not think your relationship with Christ is an exclusive, one on one affair. It must involve other people. "Christ...will not even live within you if you cannot find Him in other men."
There is a whole other theme in this chapter about submission to authority and that is of less relevance to many of us. But maybe we should take another look at our attitude towards obedience which may be a lack of humility on our part.