“In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.

In another sense we have already arrived.

We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light.

But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!”

Thomas Merton – Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings

Thomas Merton died on this day in 1968.

Apart from scripture itself, Merton’s writings, without question, have been the single biggest source of artistic inspiration and spiritual formation for me. Someday, when I write my memoirs, there will be an entire chapter (maybe two) on Merton’s influence on my life and thought, but for now I’ll point you to this essay by Michael Spencer called “The Monk Who Wouldn’t Go Away“. A quote from that piece:

It is Merton’s honest humanity and thorough Christianity that won my admiration. In my particular evangelical suburb, Christian piety takes some bizarre turns, focusing on all varieties of robotic behavior, enforced personality traits, phony religious experiences and outright lies. Merton was the first modern Christian writer I encountered that was completely and totally himself and at home in his own skin.

Spencer speaks for me in many ways, especially in addressing the paradoxical nature of my affinity for Merton.

The title of my blog is taken from a book by Merton called “The Ascent to Truth “. Below are some links to Merton-related material at “The Ascent to Truth” over the years. Some are evidently written during cynical and searching phases of my journey, but that’s the beauty of a blog: watching the progression… the ascent to truth if you will:

On John Piper, Thomas Merton, and Other Things That Go Nicely Together

Reason is the Path to Faith But Not to Oprah Winfrey

Thomas Merton and the Search for True Self

Merton Quotes

Other useful links:

Look at books by Thomas Merton at Amazon.com

A Merton-inspired painting. The artist is Angela Wales Rockett and you can see more of her paintings here. and read her blog here.

This post by Alan Creech contains a link to an MP3 of Merton speaking.

***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7***

The most famous work on spiritual disciplines among Evangelicals is Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard J. Foster, but the origins of my interest and practice go back a bit further. Around 1993, as an 18-year-old I began to read my first Thomas Merton book, Thoughts In Solitude. I had just begun my adult life in a way as I was beginning my first full-time job after graduating high school.

I decided to start daily morning devotions and Merton’s book was the one I decided to start with. And these two days at Medaille are an attempt to re-experience those days when I first discovered the nourishment I found in the works of Thomas Merton.

The book (Thoughts In Solitude) is now in very rough shape, having been read more than once, and referenced countless times. The cover has come apart from the pages; the pages themselves are coming apart from one another.

It was written in 1953 and 1954 during an intense time of solitude and meditation afforded to Merton, as he puts it, “by the grace of God and the favor of his Superiors.” There was no intention on his part for the book to address advanced or sensational adventures in these disciplines, but rather to state their basic function and importance in the life of a contemplative.

“Society depends for its existence,” Merton sets out in the introduction, “on the inviolable personal solitude of its members.” Indeed, we are in deep trouble then. “When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude,” he continues, “it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority.”

John Calvin said, “Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.” Merton echoes this thought in saying that, “Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.”

More precisely – we have to have enough mastery of ourselves to renounce our own will into the hands of Christ – so that he may conquer what we cannot reach by our own efforts.

The driving force of Merton’s thinking and subsequent writing was the nature and conquest of “true self.” However, this was no self-absorbed, pop-psychology, self-fulfillment endeavor.  Merton believed that the “true self” could only be found in God, that seeking God and seeking self were one and the same pursuit.  To seek and then know God’s will is to know one’s own purpose; to know what God has planned is to know how to proceed; to know what God is doing is to glory in the trials we face.

The search for self begins and ends in the search for God. By seeking the One who created us, knows us, and has a plan for us, we will know both Him and ourselves.  For we are only truly ourselves as we are in His will and nothing short of that self is the true self.

Two references – both positive – can be found, not in the works of CS Lewis but in his letters.  In a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths on December 20^th, 1961 Lewis asks, “Have you read anything by an American Trappist called Thomas Merton?  I’m at present on his No Man Is an Island.  It is the best new spiritual reading I’ve met for a long time.” Lewis mentions Merton again three days later in a letter to an American friend.  “I’ve been greatly impressed,” Lewis writes, “by the work of an American Trappist called Thomas Merton – No Man Is an Island. You probably know it?”

Lewis in league with Merton. Who would have guessed? Could this be a doorway for others also to take interest in the works of Thomas Merton?

Thomas Merton died on this day in 1968.

Apart from scripture itself, Merton’s writings, without question, have been the single biggest source of artistic inspiration and spiritual formation for me. Someday, when I write my memoirs, there will be an entire chapter (maybe two) on Merton’s influence on my life and thought, but for now I’ll point you to this essay by Michael Spencer called “The Monk Who Wouldn’t Go Away“. A quote from that piece:

It is Merton’s honest humanity and thorough Christianity that won my admiration. In my particular evangelical suburb, Christian piety takes some bizarre turns, focusing on all varieties of robotic behavior, enforced personality traits, phony religious experiences and outright lies. Merton was the first modern Christian writer I encountered that was completely and totally himself and at home in his own skin.

Spencer speaks for me in many ways, especially in addressing the paradoxical nature of my affinity for Merton.

The title of my blog is taken from a book by Merton called “The Ascent to Truth “. Below are some links to Merton-related material at “The Ascent to Truth” over the years. Some are evidently written during cynical and searching phases of my journey, but that’s the beauty of a blog: watching the progression… the ascent to truth if you will:

On John Piper, Thomas Merton, and Other Things That Go Nicely Together

Reason is the Path to Faith But Not to Oprah Winfrey

Thomas Merton and the Search for True Self

Merton Quotes

Other useful links:

Look at books by Thomas Merton at Amazon.com

A Merton-inspired painting. The artist is Angela Wales Rockett and you can see more of her paintings here. and read her blog here.

This post by Alan Creech contains a link to an MP3 of Merton speaking.

Merton was born on this day in 1915… a couple of my favorite quotes:

“Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more…Faith does not destroy reason, but fulfills it.”

“One of the paradoxes of our age is that millions of men who have found it impossible to believe in God have blindly submitted themselves in human faith to every charlatan who has access to a printing press, a movie screen, or a microphone.”

“or a blog,” I think Merton would have added.

1. I started dating Anne Marie when I was just short of my 15th birthday

2. I married Anne Marie when I was just short of my 20th birthday

3. In between those two dates, I didn’t always treat Anne Marie as well as could have. I hope I do a lot better now.

4. I get annoyed with people’s idiosyncrasies, and my own as well

5. I sometimes exclaim: “Man, I am SUCH a freak!”

6. I don’t think Johnny Cash really made that great a contribution

7. I demand too much of my little girls sometimes… but much was demanded of me when I was little and I’m now thankful for it

8. I haven’t written many new songs in the last few years and I sometimes worry that the gift is gone. If it is gone, it found it’s way to Shane. Shane writes good songs.

9. I can sleep anywhere… and it doesn’t have to be quiet either

10. I have wasted many years at my current job. I plan to fix that problem in the next couple of months

11. I once took too many free balloons from the grocery store. My mom made me take them back. I was frightened and humiliated and that day I learned a valuable lesson

12. Some things that I think are funny are actually mean (peace out Shane)

13. I sometimes shamelessly promote my blog

14. I cry almost every time I hear Counting Crows “Miami”

15. I cry when I watch that cheesy “You… complete me” scene in Jerry Maguire

16. I cried for about 10 minutes – actually I wept – after watching Charlize Theron in “Monster” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/

17. I can’t find or imagine finding another family as knit together or unique as the Krahns.

18. I have three daughters and no desire to have a son

19. I don’t fear aging, in fact I’m looking fwd to it

20. A few years ago, I almost converted to Roman Catholicism.  I still consider Thomas Merton a mentor.

21. I like books

22. Sleep is a necessary evil

23. Jack Layton makes me nauseous

24. I have a lot of hope for Barack Obama, although I wish he’d change his views on abortion

25. If anything goes wrong in the USA, Jack Bauer can fix it with threats of violence… and violence.

I changed the title from “A Mind Awake” (after a book about C.S. Lewis) to “The Ascent to Truth” (after a book by Thomas Merton).  I like books, in case you haven’t noticed.

I chose the new title for several reasons:

1. It’s the title of one of my favorite Thomas Merton books
2. I hope everyone believes that truth is a noble goal and that they’re traveling and rising toward it
3. In another sense the word means “a movement or return toward a source or beginning” or in some ways “a surrender to what IS”, a surrender to truth, and we must seek to surrender to truth, and to the ultimate Truth – Jesus Christ.

What do you think? Do you like the new title or the old title better?

Ok, I’m done now… I told Anne Marie not to let me go out again.

Here’s the academic stack:

…and the other stack. You’ll notice I out the Bell and Pagitt books between some more solid theological works.  I tried to put them closer to MacArthur but there were sparks.

By the way, we’re going Rob Bell’s church (Mars Hill) tomorrow morning. I’ll put up a post about that sometime next week.

This town is a gold mine. I bought the stack below at a mall -  A MALL! And I only went through half of what they had so I’ll be going back today. I didn’t pay more than $4.99 for any of these.

 Top book is by Ratzinger (BXVI).  I’ve skimmed it and his writing is fantastic.

There are three in the stack by Erwin McManus… I picked up another of his last week in London so I’m pretty close to have all of his.

“The Sacred Way” is by TonyJones. We’ll see about that one.

“Favorite Psalms” is by John Stott

Bottom book (“The Sprit of Revival”) is by R.C. Sproul and is subtitled “Discover the Wisdom of Jonathan Edwards”

Stay tuned… I’m going to Baker Books today.

I always buy a lot of books at this time of the year.  Tomorrow we’re heading for Grand Rapids where I’ll buy a few dozen more.  Below are spine pics of some that I bought this week.

I picked these up one night at a thrift store and at Chapters in the discount section:

I picked up the ones in the next few pics in various shops in London:

These next few are ones I already have, so these will be to give away:

When I find a worthy author I engage that author intensely and exhaustively until I can articulate what they are and are not about.  I’ve done this with CS Lewis, Thomas Merton, Marshall McLuhan, Mark Driscoll, Douglas Coupland, Madeleine L’engle, and I am now doing it with John Piper.  Many people sip on these authors and then quote them out of context to make a point that the authors themselves never would have made.  So you end up with people who are vehemently anti-Catholic quoting a high Anglican like Lewis, or more absurdly, they’ll quote GK Chesterton, who was a convert and great champion of Catholicism.  But quote Thomas Merton to them and they’ll point and cry “Anathema!” in your direction and then leave the room.

At any rate, Piper is the stream or phase you’ll find me in now, but by phase I do not mean fad.  None of the people I mention have been fads for me; they have been extended engagements that have turned into my foundations.

In time my focus on Piper will subside because he will take his place in my foundation, along with seemingly disparate others like Merton and L’engle.  How is this possible?  It’s not supposed to be… I guess that’s what makes me Emerging/Emergent to the extent that I am – I can live with the paradox and invite others to join me there..

So I don’t know what you’ve heard about Piper but I’ll vouch for him as one of the keenest expositors of scripture who also has a loving heart and a truth-hungry mind.  I don’t agree with everything he says but he has the following in common with all the other authors I mentioned: he lights up my brain, helps me to understand things I’ve struggled to understand for years.  He is far more compatible with my brand of Emergence than most suspect. He is sure of many things but unlike your typical American Baptist pastor he doesn’t attempt to snow you if he doesn’t know the answer.

This is a different conversation altogether, but I’ve come to believe that much of the Emergent movement grows not out of having read the Bible and found it lacking, but from not having read the Bible at all, or at least picking and choosing the passages that fit – which we all do, but I don’t see why it should be sanctioned in one movement and not the other.  The same goes for politics… Donald Miller stumps for Obama, and today Tony Jones (former national coordinator for Emergent Village) did a national interview promoting Obama.  I say that’s a double standard.

Anyway, I am not someone who buys someone else’s systematic theology and then tries to force it down other people’s throats.  I believe in reading widely and stopping for an extended examination of ideas when I come across something compelling.

Here’s a 5-minute Piper segment that illustrates my point.  The format is a daily Q&A podcast : audio or text transcript

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

On a church men’s group road trip to an enormous Christian bookstore in Detroit when I was 17 or 18 years old, I discovered Thomas Merton. I don’t remember when I first heard his name but I know I had been reading books and listening to music that quoted him and even used his book titles for song and album titles. At that bookstore I acquired a number of his works, not diving into them at first but very proud to add this theological diversity to the shelves of my small but expanding library.

Since that time the writings of Thomas Merton have had a significant human influence on my spiritual life. While C.S.Lewis captures my intellect, Madeleine L’Engle my imagination, and Francis Schaeffer my love of culture, only Merton captures, invades, and enriches all three. I have spent much time, ink, lead, and highlighter on his books.

The first Merton book I read was Thoughts In Solitude when I was 19-years-old. My conservative Anabaptist background had biased me against Catholicism but I was curious. I struck me that I was reading a book by a Catholic that didn’t mention worshiping Mary on every page! I have always been theologically curious – probably because I grew up surrounded by my father’s books. I now have a couple thousand of my own.

In my opinion, Monks such as Merton do us a service by exploring and then mapping the landscape of solitude and the interior life. It can be said of Monasticism that it is essentially non-evangelistic, and there is some merit to the criticism, however this cannot be applied to Merton as the influence of his life and writing has had a profoundly evangelistic effect on the world at large.

The center of every Thomas Merton book that I have read is self-real-ization, in other words, discovering who you really are – in Christ. He meant to communicate a means of discovering your true identity, and not just by acknowledging it, but by learning to live it in completely. Self-realization, true self-real-ization can only happen through Christ. Since He made us and loves us, only through Him can we know who He and His Father and we truly are.

Merton’s common theme of finding and nurturing, then denying and surrendering “true self” has been a cornerstone for me. It revealed to me both my worth to God and my relative nothingness in comparison to Him. When we come to understand that nothing we do will suit us unless it is in unity with His will, we learn to trust Him and to remove impediments to His working in our lives.

I consider Merton a spiritual mentor and he (along with Madeleine L’Engle and Bill Mallonee) is the reason I have filled many hand-written journals. I can’t count the number of times I have sat at home or in coffee shops reading The New Man or The Ascent to Truth or New Seeds of Contemplation and I would stop reading and start writing. Ideas came alive, theology became more understandable and concrete and yet more mystical and alive at the same time.

Go to: Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|The Thomas Merton Page

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THE RANGE OF MERTON’S INFLUENCE

Despite the fact that some viewed him as a “celebrity monk”, Merton remained focused on his disciplined life as a Trappist. Those naming his as an influence and referencing his works range from 60’s folk music icon Joan Baez to present-day conservative Emerging Church pastor Mark Driscoll.1

Merton’s life of disciplined submission enabled him to produce many works that remain influential to this day. Calvinist mystics Richard Foster in A Celebration of Discipline2 and Don Postema in Space For God3 both quote generously from his works. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a resurgence of interest in selected elements of Merton’s writings in the more mystical branches of the Emergent Church Movement.

Two references – both positive – can be found in the letters of C.S. Lewis. In a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths on December 20th, 1961 Lewis asks, “Have you read anything by an American Trappist called Thomas Merton? I’m at present on his No Man Is an Island. It is the best new spiritual reading I’ve met for a long time.”4 Lewis mentions Merton again three days later in a letter to an American friend. “I’ve been greatly impressed,” Lewis writes, “by the work of an American Trappist called Thomas Merton – No Man Is An Island. You probably know it?”5

Merton’s influence extended far beyond Christendom, and it was the alliances he formed with non-Christians, mostly eastern religious holy men, that some today use as the basis for accusations of syncretism and heresy.

Merton met The Dalai Lama only once, shortly before his death in 1968, but they profoundly impacted one another. “When he died,” The Dalai Lama said, “I felt that I had lost personally one of my best friends.”6 Although only having spent one session of time together, Merton left such an impression on The Dalai Lama that he began to refer to Merton in speeches and whenever he was asked to address the need for understanding between the East and the West.

This spiritual leader of millions of Buddhists around the world would say of Merton, “I could learn still more from him.”7 Because of the enduring impact of Merton’s presence, Buddhist monk communities in India began to learn about Christian tradition, citing social work, social affairs, and excellence in education as Christian traditions to aspire to. Summarizing his encounter with Merton, the Dalai Lama said, “He made a great impression on me. When I think or feel something Christian, immediately his picture, his vision, his face comes to me.”8

Toward the end of his life, Merton maintained letter relationships and occasionally communicated in person with those in the outside world, including 1960’s folk-music icon Joan Baez. This and a number of other outside encounters have led some to call him the “Celebrity Monk,”9 but Merton’s dedication to the Monastic life, by most accounts, remained to the end of his life.

Go to: Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|The Thomas Merton Page

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_______________________

1 Mark Driscoll, “Answers to Common Questions About Creation,” The Resurgence, http://theresurgence.com/mark_driscoll_2006-06_answers_to_common_questions_about_creation (accessed November 7, 2007). In the article Driscoll quotes Merton as follows: “As the mystic Thomas Merton rightly said, we are all angels and demons wrapped up in meat.”
2 Richard Foster, A Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco, USA: Harper San Francisco, 1998) Merton is mentioned on all of the following pages: 2, 15, 21, 22, 32, 98, 108, 186, 187
3 Don Postema, Space For God (Grand Rapids, USA: CRC Publications, 1997)
4 C.S. Lewis, ed. Letters of C.S.Lewis (USA: Harvest/HBJ, 1975), 302.
5 C.S. Lewis, ed. Letters to an American Lady (Grand Rapids, USA: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991), 101.
6 Paul Wilkes, ed. Merton By Those Who Knew Him Best (San Francisco, USA: Harper & Row, 1987), 147.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 148.
9 Radio National: Encounter, “Thomas Merton: Celebrity Monk,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s322192.htm (accessed November 9, 2007)

THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE

Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude was written in 1953 and 1954 during an intense time of solitude and meditation afforded to him, as he puts it, “by the grace of God and the favor of his Superiors.”1 There was no intention for the book to address advanced or sensational adventures in these disciplines, but rather to state their basic function and importance in the life of a contemplative.

Solitude and Silence

Solitude held a place of chief importance for Merton and he believed that the loss of solitude in society both caused and perpetuated much evil. “Society depends for its existence,” he says, “on the inviolable personal solitude of its members.”2 Merton believed that a society made up of people who knew no interior solitude could not be held together by love and as a consequence would be forcibly held together by violence and abusive authority.

Merton’s love and continuous search for God was without limits. “If a man is to live,” he says, “he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith.”3 The spiritual life needs both thought and feeling; to assign it to a single realm is to embrace it incompletely. If the spiritual life is consigned to merely thinking, we rely on our own limited reason and squelch the voice of God. Man is more than a disembodied mind.

The Conquest of True Self

The driving force of Merton’s thinking and subsequent writing was the nature and conquest of “true self.” Through strict discipline and a life of intentional physical and spiritual poverty, Merton believed that “true self” could be found. However, this was no self-absorbed, pop-psychology, self-fulfillment endeavor. Merton believed that the “true self” could only be found in God, that seeking God and seeking self was a singular pursuit. To seek and then know God’s will is to know one’s own purpose; to know what God has planned is to know how to proceed; to know what God is doing is to glory in the trials we face.

“Real self-conquest,” Merton says, “is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.”4 The search for self begins and ends in the search for God.

Knowing oneself is both the pursuit of self-knowledge and the pursuit of God. According to Merton, “before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can surrender what he does not possess.”5 By seeking the One who created us, knows us, and has a plan for us, we will know both Him and ourselves. For we are only truly ourselves as we exist in His will and nothing short of that self is the “true self.”

Meditation

Merton describes meditation as one of the ways a spiritual man can “keep himself awake,” that meditation will nurture and maintain our sensitivity to spiritual things. “Meditative prayer is a stern discipline,” Merton acknowledges, and it is a discipline that requires “unending courage and perseverance, and those who are not willing to work at it patiently will finally end in compromise,”6 which is only another name for failure.

It is so difficult because it is not merely a prayer spoken with ones lips but a prayer of the entire self. In meditative prayer we turn all of ourselves towards Him.

Nothingness

Merton speaks of a “habitual realization” that in the grand scheme of the universe, God is everything and we are nothing, that He is the centrifugal force to whom all our actions are directed, whether intentionally or not. The only matter to be decided is whether we will willingly cooperate with His sovereign will or resist Him, at our own peril.

It is worth quoting at length Merton’s summary of this idea:

That our life and strength proceed from Him, that both in life and in death we depend entirely on Him, that the whole course of our life is foreknown by Him and falls into the plan of His wise and merciful Providence; that it is absurd to live as though without Him, for ourselves, by ourselves; that all our plans and spiritual ambitions are useless unless they come from Him and end in Him and that, in the end, the only thing that matters is His Glory.7

Abandoning oneself to God, trusting Him with our fate, is necessary if we are to find ourselves in Him. Through this trust and self-abandonment, this willing self-denial, we show our love for God and we truly discover that “all things work together for good.”8 Without this trust, everything simply leads to our destruction. Our purpose is found in the pursuit of His ultimate glory.

There is a paradoxical aspect to this seeking and self-abandonment. We cannot find Him unless He reveals Himself to us, and yet He is the one who forms in us a desire to seek Him. In the course of this search, there may still be times of dryness and distance. Merton, however, sees these times as God’s intentional withdrawing of the sense of His presence in order to strengthen our faith. In these times we find the value of our poverty and our weakness. They are, Merton says, “the earth in which God sows the seed of desire.”9 To be constantly enveloped in His presence would negate the need for the desire for His presence.

And since we worship a God who is unseen, to desire Him is to renounce the desire of anything that can be seen. We may still desire these things, but we must renounce the direct desiring of them and seek them only with a desire that is initiated by God.

Poverty

Trappist poverty is intentional and it is both physical and spiritual, but it is not something they are unwillingly subjected to or by which they are victimized. On the contrary, it is an intentional, self-imposed state for the purpose of mystical identification with those whom Jesus called “blessed.”10 This intentional poverty is meant to drive the willing participant to God, to rely on Him for everything so that he relies on himself for nothing, recognizing that we are given everything by God anyway. “As long as we remain poor,” Merton says, “as long as we are empty and interested in nothing but God, we cannot be distracted. For our very poverty prevents us from being ‘pulled apart’ (dis-tracted)”11

These gifts of grace – silence, solitude, and poverty – are meant to turn our focus so directly to God that everything we do becomes prayer. In this state Merton could most closely live out the biblical command to pray without ceasing.12

To be in a position where we must ask in order to receive is a concept foreign to an individualist society which prides itself on being self-sustaining and self-supportive, but this is what intentional poverty demands. “The solitary, more than anyone else is always aware of his poverty and of his needs before God. Since he depends directly on God for everything material and spiritual, he has to ask for everything.”13 In a society where we plan for decades into the future and consider living day-to-day, or “paycheck-to-paycheck”, a sign of poor financial management, this intentional poverty seems like foolishness.

Go to: Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|The Thomas Merton Page

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_______________________
1 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 11.
2 Ibid., 12.
3 Ibid., 27.
4 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 29.
5 Ibid., 96.
6 Ibid., 48.
7 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 52-53.
8 Rom. 8:28 (ESV).
9 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 54.
10 Matt. 5:2 (ESV).
11 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 93.
12 1 Thess. 5:17 (ESV).
13 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 105.

LIFE AS A TRAPPIST MONK

“It is customary,” Merton says in The Silent Life, “to begin discussions of Cistercian spirituality with a historical flourish”1 – and so I will begin as custom dictates.

On Palm Sunday in 1098 Robert of Molesmes and a group of monks left their Benedictine monastery and traveled to the woods of Citeaux, there to follow The Rule of St Benedict “to the letter.” As most reform movements tend to be viewed, this one was looked upon with some suspicion and accusations of, among other things, pharisaism, literalism, and fanaticism. Robert of Molesmes and his monks believed that St Benedict had successfully set into rule the simplicity, intentional poverty, and sacrificial love of Christ and the early Christians.

This group of monks came to be known as the Cistercians. “The Cistercian reform aimed,” says Merton, “to restore the pure charity of the early Christians by means of a simple and austere common life.”2 Simplicity and austerity – these two words characterize the life Merton lived as a monk.

In time, the practices within this reform movement became too lax for some, and another reform movement arose at the Abbey of Notre Dame de la Grande Trappe in 1664. This group came to be known as the Trappists.3

The Cistercian family is divided into three groups: the Common Observance, the Middle Observance, and the Strict Observance, also known as the Trappists.4 This last Monastic order is the one to which Merton belonged and is, as the name implies, the strictest of the three. All branches of Benedictine monasticism have a common founder in St Benedict, a sixth-century monk, and a common rule: The Rule of St. Benedict.

The Rule of St Benedict

The Rule of St Benedict is the owner’s manual for the Benedictine life. It is a strict and detailed set of rules and requirements for those who desire to belong to any Benedictine order. “The purpose of the Rule,” according to Merton, “is to form Christ in the soul of a monk in much the same way He was formed in the soul of St. Benedict.”5 The Rule is, in essence, St Benedict’s autobiography, the experiences of his life codified and unadorned; it is his revealing of the outworking of the Gospel of Christ in his life for the benefit of those who would later seek to follow him.

It was not, however, meant to be followed in a manner of pharisaic legalism. “On the contrary,” Merton says, “it is meant to remind us of our human frailty and keep us humble. We are sanctified not merely by those precepts we keep, but by those which we inadvertently break, provided that we make use of the remedies the Rule provides.”6 The Rule serves not as a tool of isolation or punishment, but as a reminder of the inherent weakness and helplessness of man. It is a tool of humility, meant to orient the adherent toward an ever-increasing recognition and reliance on the mercy of God.

Silence, Labor, and Poverty

The discipline of silence is the center of Trappist life. “For it belongeth to the master,” says The Rule of St Benedict, “to speak and to teach; it becometh the disciple to be silent and to listen… coarse jests, and idle words or speech provoking laughter, we condemn everywhere to eternal exclusion; and for such speech we do not permit the disciple to open his lips.” The rule goes on to say, “Therefore, because of the importance of silence, let permission to speak be seldom given to perfect disciples even for good and holy and edifying discourse.” 7

Manual labor is also a staple of Trappist life. “The charity of a life of labor and poverty lived in common,” Merton says, “is meant to prepare the monk for contemplative union with God.”8 To labor and not profit, to rely on God for everything was to Merton identification with the poor whom Christ called blessed.9 Merton sought to establish a mystical unity with Christ by intentionally associating with the poor. “This concept,” says Merton, “is the key to the whole Cistercian theology of labor.”10

“Poverty is the door to freedom,” Merton says in Thoughts In Solitude, “not because we remain imprisoned in the anxiety and constraint which poverty itself implies, but because, finding nothing in ourselves that is a source of hope, we know there is nothing in ourselves worth defending. There is nothing special in ourselves to love.”11

Above all, Trappist life is a life of community, but the community as a whole seeks separation and solitude from the world. The value of poverty is that it causes us to rely on something other than ourselves, and rightly ordered it should drive us toward God and His mercy. It should also compel us toward others with whom we share genuine community.

Daily Schedule

Cistercians rise very early in the morning, between 2:00 and 2:15 AM, to chant. This is followed by half an hour of meditation, and then a stretch near dawn of one and a half to two hours for mass, communion, and Lectio Divina (meditative reading). Prior to another session of chant around 6:15 AM, a meager breakfast of coffee and bread is served. This is followed with a talk given by the Father Abbot and an opportunity for the monks to confess their faults against the Rule. Next this there is another time of Lectio Divina and a mass. The work-day ends when monks return to their reading and chanting before retiring around 7:00 PM.

Each day there are two hours of manual labor in the morning, and another two to two and a half hours in the afternoon. The Trappist diet is quite restricted; no meat, fish, or eggs are served unless one is sick. The regular meal consists of milk, cheese, and vegetables.

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1 Thomas Merton, The Silent Life (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 95.
2 Ibid., 96.
3 Wikipedia, “Trappist,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappist, (accessed November 8, 2007)
4 Wikipedia, “Cistercians,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cistercians, (accessed November 7, 2007)
5 Thomas Merton, The Silent Life (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 61.
6 Ibid., 109.
7 Kansas Monks, “Chapter VI, Of Silence,” The Rule of St Benedict, http://www.kansasmonks.org/RuleOfStBenedict.html (accessed November 7, 2007)
8 Thomas Merton, The Silent Life (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 97.
9 Matt. 5:2 (ESV).
10 Thomas Merton, The Silent Life (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 99.
11 Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (New York, USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980), 53.

Thomas Merton has been rightly called “one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century,”1 but his influence has spread far beyond the limits of the Catholic population. The endurance and diversity of his influence is due in large part to the strict observance of The Rule of St. Benedict Merton practiced at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, the monastery where he spent his 27 years as a monk.

Merton was no stranger to the disciplines of the spiritual life. As a monk, the spiritual disciplines would have been his main focus. As a Trappist monk in particular, silence and solitude were two disciplines he practiced constantly. These were wellsprings of insight for Merton and he directed the flow into a body of work that can easily be described as prolific.

To understand Merton and his writings, we must first examine his daily life. Next we will examine how his spirituality was formed and practiced in the context of this disciplined life by an analysis of his book Thoughts In Solitude. We will then look at the extent of his influence on other people of influence and conclude with some personal reflections.

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1 Wikipedia, “Thomas Merton,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton, (accessed November 7, 2007)