Thomas Merton

I think Thomas Merton is absolutely brilliant.

The opening sentence of No Man Is An Island is like a pin prick of light that brightens exponentially with each word that follows. It's one of the most profound sentences I've ever read, and it is a seed of an idea that grows throughout the first chapter to become one of the most succinct description of Christianity that I think I've ever read. The chapter is called "Love Can Be Kept Only By Being Given Away." It's stunning, and I think everyone should read it.

Here's the opening line:

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

That is everything that our life is about! We all desperately desire to be happy, to find peace and joy in this difficult life of ours, and we find all kinds of ways to fill the void, to fill the loneliness and emptiness we feel. The crutches that we turn to time and time again never fail to disappoint. It is by loving others out of selfless love where we find true joy.

Here's the next paragraph:

There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves.

And another powerful passage:

The first step to unselfish love is the recognition that our love may be deluded. We must first of all purify our love by renouncing the pleasure of loving as an end in itself. As long as pleasure is our end, we will be dishonest with ourselves and with those we love. We will not seek their good, but our own pleasure.

Imagine if marriages were approached this way? I don't think we'd have a 50% divorce rate! As Lewis says, we need to be about the business of heaven: expending our lives on behalf of those around us. That's loving with an unselfish love, which, as Merton says, "not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. It has only one good: that of the beloved, which is, at the same time, my own. Love shares the good with another not by dividing it with him, but by identifying itself with him so that his good becomes my own."

That cuts through me like a knife.

Merton on Writing

From Thomas Merton's book, New Seeds of Contemplation:

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy.

If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while.

If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead.

And later:

If a writer writes so cautiously that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn.

This last quote was good for me to read. I opened the book randomly, and that quote jumped out at me. I'm pretty sure the book I plan to write is something some men will condemn, so I guess that's a good thing.

Words on suffering, from the 17th century Jesuit priest, J.P. de Caussade:

Let us look upon our afflictions, whether general or particular, as God's work and not man's injustice. God, St. Augustine said, would permit no evil that his power and his goodness could not avail to turn to the great advantage of his elect. Let us, then, make use of present ills to avoid those that are everlasting and to deserve the rewards promised to Faith and to patience. The time will come and that shortly, when we shall say with David: "We have rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled us: for the years in which we have seen evils.

I am on the eve of my 38th birthday, and as is normal for most of us, we tend to reflect back on the year that has past, and think towards the future. It's been a rough one, but I feel that I'm a better man for it. I realize that I am still not completely over Meg. There crept within me a desperate hope that she would send me a birthday card, some meager sign that perhaps there was something still within her that still pined for me. I have to hope that this year will finally see me put that to rest completely, and to be able to embrace a hope that there is someone else out there for me. I had lunch the other day with a woman who I think is absolutely delightful, and I find myself thinking about her quite often, hoping that my interest in her is reciprocated. I'm still a bit raw, though, and have a reflexive fear that I will be rebuffed. I suppose God desires healing of that for me, and indeed, if I am rebuffed, it must be God's will. The quote above is from a book called Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence. I know that the most important area for me to be able to exercise trust in God is in the area of women and my future spouse. There's a part of me that figures I have a lot more to learn in this, so who knows what's in store for me.

And besides, didn't I just write the other day that I felt that God wanted me to be single right now? But hey, if the opportunity arises to go have lunch with a beautiful and delightful woman, who can blame me for passing that up? It's been awhile.