Merton on Contemplation

Last week at a friend's cottage I happened upon a book that has been on my 'to-read' list for a while, Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation.

I skimmed through it and landed on one chapter in particular that said a lot about living a contemplative life, a life in which one 'pays attention' to God's presence and activity in the here-and- now present moment.

As an 'aspirant' to such activity, (and very often ONLY an aspirant!) I could identify with what Merton, a Trappist monk, writer, philosopher and activist had to say about the challenges of contemplation:

"The contemplative life certainly does not demand a self-righteous contempt for the habits and diversions of ordinary people. But nevertheless, no man who seeks liberation and light in solitude, no man who seeks spiritual freedom, can afford to yield passively to all the appeals of a society of salesman, advertisers and consumers. . . . A natural pleasure is one thing; an unnatural pleasure, forced upon the satiated mind by the importunity of a salesman is quite another."

These words, written in 1961, are even more relevant today than ever. Life is often nothing but distractions, a perilous place for we, the ADD-crowd.

As I look deeper into my entire motivation for seeking to contemplate, these thoughts shine a light on what for me is often simply a desire for peace, quiet and no annoying people to have to bother with. Merton writes,

"If you seek escape for its own sake and run away from the world only because it is (as it must be) intensely unpleasant, you will not find peace and you will not find solitude. If you seek solitude merely because it is what you prefer, you will never escape from the world and its selfishness; you will never have the interior freedom that will keep you really alone."

So what is the whole point and purpose of living a contemplative life, or even just to take a day apart to be quiet and enjoy some solitude? Being on sabbatical, I am enjoying having chunks of time I can dedicate to solitude, but to what end? Likening contemplation to a desert, Merton says,

"We do not go into the desert to escape people but to learn how to find them; we do not leave them in order to have nothing more to do with them, but to find out the way to do them the most good. But this is only a secondary end. The one end that includes all others is the love of God."

My prayer is that in this season of enjoying some silence and solitude, I will encounter the Lord in a fresh way and receive something I can bring back into my life among family, friends and the world that will bless and encourage another to walk closer with Him as well.

(Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 1961)