Easter Sunday

Saturday, April 7, 2012 ~ Holy Saturday

What to read for today.           

Chapter 39:The General Dance           

Questions for your personal reflection.

As you complete this reading study, are there any ways that it gave you insight into “His call and His mysterious, cosmic dance”?

Look back at your initial hopes and reservations. To what extent were these fulfilled?

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

I still remain confused about Merton’s conception of God. Even though Merton concedes that Scripture is poetry as opposed to literal history, his God is still doing things like making humans, revealing himself, confronting people, and living out dogma by becoming human.  I continue to wrestle with Merton’s insistence that God is a Who, a Person. And yet, when Merton writes of the “cosmic dance” I am right there with him.  I get that we are in the midst of it and that it permeates everything. And I couldn’t agree more when Merton says we are invited to forget ourselves, cast solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

Posted by Genevieve

Friday, April 6, 2012 ~ Good Friday

What to read for today.           

Chapter 38:Pure Love        

Questions for your personal reflection.

What sense do you make of this chapter?  Does it contribute to your understanding or experience of “God”, “contemplation” or “the interior life”?           

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

Merton seemed to roam all over the place, sometimes speaking with clarity, sometimes doubling back on himself or contradicting what he had just written.  Perhaps he was using the chapter to clarify his own confused thinking.  Or maybe words simply could not capture what he wanted to convey.

One thing that did ring true was Merton’s observation that people seem alienated from their inner selves and are “turned, spiritually, inside out”.  In other words, we confuse the image we want the outer world to see with the person we are really intended to be. As far as Merton is concerned this is the Fall of Man described in Genesis.  I think that Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock lyrics convey the same sentiment:

We are stardust

Billion year old carbon

We are golden

Caught in the devil's bargain

And we've got to get ourselves

back to the garden.

Posted by Genevieve

Thursday, April 5, 2012 ~ Holy Thursday

What to read for today.           

Chapter 37:Sharing The Fruits of Contemplation           

Questions for your personal reflection.

Have you tried to engage others in this Lenten discipline as you have carried it out?  How? With what results?

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

As I re-read this chapter I was filled with horror at the thought that this Lenten reading study might be an exercise in preaching at people.  “The contemplative who tries to preach contemplation before he himself really knows what it is, will prevent both himself and others from finding the true path to God’s peace.”  I certainly don’t want to be that person.

I accept Merton’s observation that spiritual experiences defy words and cannot be communicated and that even if they can, many people are not interested in the interior life.   Even so, I think it is worth wrestling with words and offering one’s thoughts to others.   This is how I clarify ideas and experiences and what prompts growth.

Posted by Genevieve

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

What to read for today.           

Chapter 36:Inward Destitution           

Questions for your personal reflection.

Do you share Merton’s view that “when we accept what we are and what we are not, we begin to realize that this great poverty is our greatest fortune”?  If so, in what way do you see this as fortunate for your interior life?

  

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

When I read this chapter I couldn’t help thinking about the character called “Lowly Worm” in Richard Scary’s children’s books.  Merton’s view of humanity can sometimes be depressingly negative and, as others have observed, he descends into a rant.   So I am beginning to rebel or resist.  Do I have to accept a worm-like status to address my own egotism or pursue a path of integrity?  Is it really necessary to become nothing in order to be the something contained in my true identity? 

How I wish Merton had lived beyond 1968 because I would so much like to have followed his thinking, especially after his trip to Asia and his intended residence with a Sufi mystic in Iran.


Posted by Genevieve

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

What to read for today.           

Chapter 35:Renunciation           

Questions for your personal reflection.

What would today be like if, just for today, you refrained from “directing those you have not been appointed to direct, reforming those you have not been asked to reform, correcting those over whom you have no jurisdiction”?

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

One of the themes in this chapter is humility and false humility.  One can be humble performing physical tasks like gardening or cooking. But one can be equally humble by using one’s intellectual powers.  The thing to watch out for is vanity.  Merton urges us not to claim ownership of our capabilities but to simply accept them and then to cheerfully carry out life’s duties.

A related point is to stick to your own knitting, meaning to spend time improving yourself and stop trying to reform everyone else.


Posted by Genevieve

Monday, April 2, 2012

What to read for today.           

Chapter 34:The Wrong Flame           

Questions for your personal reflection.

To what extent is sentimentality, “sensible intoxication” or “the stimulus of emotion” necessary to your spiritual life?            

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

I was brought up in a devout, religious family where sentimentality and acts of piety were confused with holiness. We preferred a warm interior glow to an encounter with a real human being.  I now see that this is a form of spiritual immaturity.  I am grateful to Merton and others who have helped me see that “holy feelings” have no essential connection to sanctity and are only momentary “illusions” of holiness.

Posted by Genevieve