The importance of contemplation
Hey you! Yes, you. Did you know that you're shining like the sun?
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Catholic monk who first became well-known for his autobiography about his journey to the faith, then for his writings about the contemplative life, then for his social commentary.
That last turn started with an experience he had in downtown Louisville, Kentucky:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness….This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud….Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes.” — From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
What a beautiful articulation of the fact that all the world is created out of the overflow of God’s love, meaning any separation we feel from each other is false, or at least not of God!
Prior to this epiphany, Merton wanted to run from the world. Merton’s time felt dangerous to him, no doubt partly due to the fact that he was born during World War I and was orphaned by age 15. He entered the monastery during World War II to get away from the noise and the violence and his own sense of rootlessness. Even so, the war began to work on his conscience, particularly the development of nuclear weapons and the overall takeover of culture by technology and capitalism. Merton called for the end of war and the abandonment of nuclear weapons at a time when few spiritual leaders were doing so. He decried the abuses of technology and the burgeoning advertising industry that pushed the latest and greatest products on the public.
Merton identified that the cause of all the danger, division, and chaos he witnessed was fear. The antidote, though, was (is) becoming ever more like Christ and seeking that likeness in others. That beauty, that draw to all humanity was what he experienced on that street corner in Louisville.
We too live in a time that is isolating and fraught. We seek cohesion: unity with one another, a sense of groundedness within ourselves, connection with God. Might Merton be our guide? He was primed for his revelation by contemplative practices that deepened his receptivity to God and quieted his busy body and mind.
When we can live in greater awareness of God’s presence and God’s work in, around, and through all humanity, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and God shows up everywhere. This gives us a transformative experience of joy that moves us to love God and ourselves and to care for one another, even for strangers.
I want that. I hope you do too. Let’s embark on our Lenten journey, then, by doing what we can to look God’s children in their faces, because they are walking around shining with the reflection of the divine light.