Thomas Merton: The Will of God as a Creative Act

The will of God is not a "fate" to which we submit but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new (or failing to do so), something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation (seeking first the Kingdom of God) consists not solely in conforming to laws but in opening our wills out to this creative act, which must be retrieved in and by us – by the will of God.

This is my big aim – to put everything else aside. I do not want to create merely for and by myself a new life and a new world, but I want God to create them in and through me. This is central and fundamental. . . .

I must lead a new life, and a new world must come into being. But not by my plans and my agitation.


[Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals, ed. by Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo, (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999) p. 125]

Rilke: Flare up like flame

God speaks to each of us
by Rainer Maria Rilke
I, 59

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:
beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.


[Rainer Maria Rilke, “Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht,” I, 59, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 88.]


Rilke imagined our creative beginnings as God's walk with us out of the darkness, speaking into us the words we will take a lifetime to recover, to hear fully, and to live into. We hear them dimly. Any journey of enlightenment or illumination is partially the journey of recalling our original purpose, our original identity.

Part of what we slowly hear again is the invitation to "flare up like flame." Perhaps this became Rilke's way of saying, "You are the light of the world." Let the inner fire of your origins, your purpose, your identity become flame. Live from the center of that fire, so that which enflames your life will enlighten others also.

Rilke was a complex man -- aren't we all, after all, complex? -- who heard faint voices most all of his life. I imagine he, like me and you, "dimly heard" these words. Did he live them well? Or not so well? Did he, in his life, "flare up like flame"? I do not know.

But I do know he heard the voice, if only dimly.

And I know we are here, a century later, reading his poem and talking about his vision of our genesis.

YOU are the light of the world. Flare up like flame.

Active Contemplation: On Being Contemplative (part 2)

In the previous post, I offered Thomas Merton's thoughts on being contemplative. [If you did not read that post from June 5, you might start there before reading on in this space.] In the larger context of that essay, Merton is describing kinds of contemplation. The words I quoted in that essay refer to what is known as active contemplation, that is, contemplation that a person intends and which is initiated by some exercise, practice, or prayer method on the human side. Centering Prayer and Christian meditation are exercises of active contemplation, for example. The human role in active contemplation is important, in setting our intention, making space for the practice, and actively engaging in a practice that disposes us of union with God. (Classically, active contemplation is held side by side with infused contemplation, in which God acts in God's own way and in God's own time upon the person, apart from the human initiative.)

For Merton, the intent of active contemplation is to see what is real, genuine, true, or authentic. He writes about the "deliberate and sustained effort to detect the will of God in events and to bring one's whole self into harmony with that will." So the contemplative question in a personal event, a national situation, or a world event asks, "What is God's will in this thing happening?" "What is God doing in this situation?"

Contemplative practice (active contemplation) allows a person, over time, to see beneath the surface of events, to detect the current underneath the obvious, to discern the spirit or animating presence that undergirds a circumstance. This kind of contemplative stance, then, does not lead to knee-jerk responses to what lies on the surface, but rather seeks out the deeper meanings, the ways in which God is woven throughout the fabric of events in subtle, almost unseen ways.

The contemplative, for example, might discern that what looks chaotic and divisive on the surface of things, actually is necessary for the dismantling of unjust and oppressive systems. In other words, with a different lens from which to see, the contemplative observes the world from a very different perspective, noticing what is actually happening in a situation rather than what merely appears to be happening.

Merton says, "Active contemplation is centered on the discovery of God's will, that is to say the identification of the real direction which events are taking, especially in our own life." (italics mine)

And again, contemplation "remains in living contact with that which is genuinely true in any traditional movement." (italics mine)

And then, "the contemplative today might be expected to have an intuitive grasp of, and even sympathy for, what is most genuine in the characteristic movements of our time . . ." (italics mine)

This "intuition" for the "real" or the "genuine direction" in events and happenings does not come quickly from our contemplation. It grows slowly over time, as we faithfully, regularly give ourselves to contemplative practice, to silent listening, to interior prayer. And further, it generally comes only when it has been tested over time with what has actually played out in life. In short, what is "real" or "genuine" may not appear for a very long time.

In contemplative prayer, there is a slow, gradual cleansing of my own biases, my own motivations, many of which are unknown to me, at least consciously. Those biases and motivations which have provided the lenses through which I see God, self, others, and the world are slowly revealed through interior prayer. Slowly those biases and motivations are re-formed -- often many, many times -- as God shapes and re-shapes my life, making me the person I was created to be.

Typically, this slow, gradual cleansing of my interior includes seeing God, self, others, and the world in more expansive ways. In my experience, I have never seen someone truly given to active contemplation, who over time saw God, self, others, and the world more narrowly. The movement is most always toward inclusion, not exclusion . . . toward a wider vision of the world, not a more limited vision . . . toward more creativity and expressiveness, not more legalism . . . toward a more expansive view of God and human-kind, not a more limiting view of God and humanity . . . toward a more global perspective, not a more tribal outlook.

Gradually personal biases are more readily noticed. A person active in their contemplative practice is more likely than before to see an issue or an event from the perspective of "the other", more able to consider a circumstance from the vantage point of someone outside their own tribe or affiliation.

Because active contemplation drops us beneath the layers of thoughts and ideas that fill our minds, and into a pure, naked silence with God, there also grows in the contemplative a posture of less judgment. Judgment usually comes as a result of mental commentaries and the predisposed ideas about God, self, other, and the world that live inside us. To drop beneath thoughts and ideas into the pure silence of contemplation, we are connecting with God apart from thoughts, concepts, and verbalizations; thus, there is little space for judgments. Judgment is always connected to a thought or a commentary about life or about "the other", and is rooted in our deeply ingrained ways of seeing life. Apart from thoughts, those judgments have nothing to latch onto. Active contemplation gives us methods for dropping deeper than thought and idea to that place where judgment falls away.

In the excerpt, Merton also says that the contemplative is "able to live within himself/herself."
"She learns to be at home in her own thoughts."
"She becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports."

What are exterior supports? They are the opinions, beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of others . . . books, podcasts, newsfeeds, movies, conversations, and more . . . anything outside ourselves from which we gather information. (This blog, I must admit, is an "exterior support"!!) Indeed, each of us relies to some extent on what others think, what others share with us of their own learning or perspective. But our reliance on others can lead us to adopt a structure or belief system that is not truly our own, but rather is an assemblage of what we have picked up from others . . . I am this part Richard Rohr and that part Thomas Keating; this belief comes from Ignatius of Loyola and that insight from Teresa of Avila. We may be stirred or inspired by what someone else thinks or writes or says, but the contemplative asks, "Is that mine?"
Or, "What part of this idea is mine to live out?"
"Does that thought speak to my unique spiritual path?"
"How does that idea inform my own union with God?"
"What is God's invitation in those words for me?"

Those are the kinds of questions carried into our spiritual reflection, our journaling, our creative exploration . . . for these, too, are contemplative practices.

Merton calls it "spiritual creativeness":
*thinking one's own thoughts;
*reaching one's own conclusions;
*looking at one's own life and directing it in accordance with his/her own "inner truth, discovered in meditation and under the eyes of God."

I recognize that some people cannot take this much freedom. Fundamentalism and much conservatism is bound in a narrowly prescribed, dogmatic formula of do's and don'ts, so that a person never has to come to grips with his/her own inner truth. One never has to think one's own thoughts or reach one's own conclusions. He/she believes only what the group believes, what the denomination, the association, the party, the nation, the tribe believes. Once the "true word" or the "party line" is set forth, all personal (and inner freedom) is forfeited for the sake of the so-called "truth".

So we become a mass of men and women who are automatons, thinking only what Fox News or CNN tell us to think . . . only what "being patriotic" tells us to believe . . . only what "being Baptist" or "Pentecostal" or "United Methodist" tells us to think.

According to Merton, being contemplative connects us to God in such a radical way that this Divine union transcends all these other movements and allegiances.

Inner Freedom: Turning Sideways into the Light

I've done some reading about the Tuatha De Danann, an ancient tribe out of Irish mythology, whose lore has significantly shaped the Irish people. One part of the myth is especially appealing to me.

[Note: I realize that most often the words "myth" or "mythology" are used to suggest things we consider to be untrue, as in, "That's just a myth." In fact, a secondary dictionary definition says that mythology refers to something many people believe to be true, but in fact is not. Actually, however, myth and mythology speak to that which is perennially true about the human condition. Greek mythology, for example, is intended to speak to who we are as humans, why we are the way we are, and how we came to be as we are. The same might be said of other traditions of mythology. I confess that I've learned these things from my two English-teacher children, who have taught me more about the great mythological traditions that I ever picked up in high school or college English courses.]

My interest in the Tuatha De Danann mostly has revolved around their final battle with the Milesians, a more violent tribe seeking to acquire the land of the Tuatha De Danann. In earlier battles, the two tribes fought using magical powers, with neither tribe able to gain the upper hand. The way many Irish storytellers spin the final battle, the Milesians finally defeat the Tuatha De Danann on the field of combat and then consign them to the underworld, where they became fairies.

But there is another version of this final battle that catches my attention. According to this particular legend, the Tuatha De Danann were a colorful people, an artistic people, a generally peaceful people not given to combat. So in that last battle, as the Milesians gathered to fight and then charged the Tuatha De Danann, the Tuatha De Danann refused to fight. Rather, they "turned sideways into the light" and disappeared into the underworld.

I'm intrigued that there are different versions of the story, different interpretations of the myth. With a certain mind or outlook, you can argue that the Tuatha De Danann were defeated, that they lost on the field of battle and thus were punished with banishment to the underworld.

But with another mind, you can say they "turned sideways into the light" and disappeared. In other words, they declined to fight on the terms of those who opposed them. In a sense, they chose an imaginative option as a way of engaging their situation. They turned sideways into the light and engaged on their own terms, in a way that was consistent with who they were, congruent with their own interior makeup.

I'll confess that most often I don't feel that I have a choice but to engage on the field of battle laid out for me . . . to fight or to engage according to the norms of society, culture, workplace, or religious assumption . . . as if I were compelled toward a certain action or stance. When this happens within me, I may have the feeling of being trapped, of being in a corner with limited options. I might say something like, "I have no choice," or "I couldn't help it," or "I have to do this!" or "I'm supposed to do this or that." For any of our actions that have the sense of "supposed to" or "ought, must, should" about them, it is worth asking yourself, "Who said so?" Or, "Who created this expectation?"

I know how easy it is to get into a place that seems confining, with little option but to engage in constraining ways. In some respects, it is simply easier to fight the Milesians on their own terms.

I'll grant that there are realms where we truly have few options . . . IF we want to remain a part of that realm. The workplace, for example, is likely a place where someone else has established the rules of engagement. You may not have the option of "turning sideways into the light" and still remain a part of that particular body. Your employment may depend on engaging according to the norms of that particular place. Creativity or imaginative thinking may not be encouraged or accepted.

In most realms of life, though, there are in fact many, many possibilities -- "with God all things are possible" the angels continually announce throughout the biblical witness -- and the sense we have of being trapped, of being forced or compelled into one stance or another is more likely a matter of our own inner freedom . . . or lack thereof. We are simply not free enough inwardly to make the hard choice, or to take the creative stance, or to imagine a possibility that has yet to be seen.

This is the long, strenuous work of inner freedom . . . to discern our own interior, to know our own interior makeup . . . and thus to be free within our own depths to respond to God, self, others, and the world in a way that is life-giving, merciful, peace-making, and compassionate.

The Tuatha De Danann were almost sure to be defeated by the Milesians on the battlefield. Rather than engage in a traditional, acceptable way, they chose to engage in an imaginative way that was consistent with who they were, with their core ethos. While some Irish storytellers name this "defeat," I would argue that doing so is not defeat, but wisdom and creative imagination and the inner freedom to engage the world out of our truest and deepest center.

Birthright

Several years ago I picked up a new volume of Thomas Merton's journals. I have to admit that Merton has not been easy for me. I tried to read him about 15 years ago because he was an important figure in spirituality. I read enough snippets from his books to know that he articulated the spiritual life in a way that was unique and profound.

I knew that I needed to be familiar with him; in those days, however, I didn't always understand Merton. What I was reading seemed like a blur to me.

Years later my experience began to catch up with my head. When I tried Merton again about 12 years ago, I began to understand. He made more sense. I was able to read him not just with my head, but with my heart and life.

So when I picked up this new copy of his journals six or seven years ago, I began to work my way through the daily entries. Still, his daily journal entries can be tedious. Sometimes I have to sift a lot of days in order to find something that connects with me. In this particular book, the going was pretty slow until I came to one particular entry.

I was going through a period of life in which I wondered about my future, what direction my life would go. And I had questions about how I would know which door to walk through into the future. I had some major decisions before me. I read these words in Merton's journal:

The will of God is not a "fate" to which we submit but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new (or failing to do so), something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation (seeking first the Kingdom of God) consists not solely in conforming to laws but in opening our wills out to this creative act, which must be retrieved in and by us -- by the will of God.

This is my big aim -- to put everything else aside. I do not want to create merely for and by myself a new life and a new world, but I want God to create them in and through me. This is central and fundamental. . . .

I must lead a new life, and a new world must come into being. But not by my plans and my agitation. (The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals, p. 125).

Merton's words struck me deeply. I sat with them, meditated on them, tried to open myself to how God might speak to me through them. I knew something important was there, though I didn't immediately know what it was.

So I returned to this journal entry over the next several days, reading it again and again. I wrote it out in my journal. I dissected it. I listened to the words, the phrases, the images that spoke into my life. I needed to hear Merton's wisdom, to live into it, to wrestle with it.

I was about three days into this process when I finally noticed the date on which Merton had written these words. He made this particular journal entry on the day I was born! I was blown away! In Vinita, Oklahoma I was born before dawn. A few hours later in a hermitage in the woods of Kentucky, Thomas Merton put his pencil to paper and wrote these words.

As I read his words time and again that week several years ago, I had the sensation that Merton had written them with me in mind. They felt like Merton's wisdom that I was ordained to carry through my life.

Why am I writing today about an experience I had with Merton several years ago? Last weekend I sat in a large room in Albuquerque, New Mexico listening to Richard Rohr speak. He was eloquent and compelling as always. At one point in his presentation he said he wanted to quote Thomas Merton, saying something about how endless was the wisdom of this contemporary spiritual guide. Then further explanation or reference, these are the words that came from Rohr's mouth:

The will of God is not a "fate" to which we submit but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new . . .

I'm carrying the words . . . like a birthright.

Hitting the Delete Key

For several months I've spent time compiling and editing another book of psalm-prayers. I've put the psalms in my own voice over several years, mostly in my daily period of morning prayer. The practice has been a helpful way of listening more deeply to the psalms, hearing their spirit and adapting them for my own life-situation.

I chose these particular psalm-prayers over a period of weeks, then spent time re-reading through them, shaping them, cleaning up vocabulary, grammar and form. Others read through them, making helpful suggestions. My anticipation over the end of the project grew as the design and layout of the text took shape, then as the title and cover design came together.

About six weeks ago I needed to work on the final elements of the book. Specifically, I needed to write an introduction to the volume, a way to introduce persons to prayer and to the practice of praying psalms. I wanted an introduction that provided some background AND introduced what I was trying to do in the psalm-prayers. I wanted it to provide a path that would enrich others in their praying of the psalms.

So I started writing introductory material . . . and writing . . . and writing. It wasn't that I came up with one lengthy document. Over a period of about five weeks, I probably made 15 starts and stops on the introduction. A few times I wrote an entire introduction, but each time I was unsatisfied with the end product. So I'd begin again. And again. And again.

I ended up with several saved drafts in my computer file. On one particular document, I'd write on a particular idea until I ran out of steam. Instead of trashing the document, I'd just type a line across the page and start all over again. In that single document alone I had six starts and stops.

I'd be out walking my dog in the evening -- a time that is good thinking/reflecting time for me -- and come up with a new direction for the introduction. So I'd quickly walk her home, sit down at the computer and start writing. Sometimes I'd stay at it until the late, late hours. But eventually I'd hit a roadblock, something I just couldn't work through.

Then, some nights I'd wake up in my bed at 3:00 a.m. to a flash of insight, a brilliant revelation concerning the introduction. I'd race out of the bed, find a pad of paper and start scribbling wildly, sometimes two or three pages of sloppy, hand-written notes. Surely, I thought, any brilliance that came to me in the wee morning hours would be illumination that was divinely ordained to make it into the introduction.

The next morning, with my head screwed on a little straighter after a couple of cups of coffee, I'd fire up the computer and start writing from my notes. The end product never seemed as brilliant and illuminating after two cups of coffee as it did at 3:00 a.m. Go figure!

Some of those drafts has some really good elements in them. I mean, REALLY good. Good stories. Helpful images. Creative examples. Sometimes, just the right turn-of-a-phrase. But I could not get totally satisfied with any of them.

About 10 days ago I was out of time. I was word-weary, frustrated and unable to see clearly what I was writing. But my deadline was upon me. I needed a workable introduction to the book in order to get it to the printer. It wasn't a matter of it being good or bad. That one had to be the one. I didn't have time for it to be anything other than the introduction that would go into the book. But that's not what I'm writing about in this essay.

What I realized, once I had come to the introduction that I would use, was how hard it was for me to jettison all the others . . . over a dozen drafts. No, they weren't good on the whole. But some of the stories in them were really helpful, I thought. And some of the images were powerful. And some of the writing was quite good, even if the whole was inadequate.

I realized how much time all those unused drafts represented . . . literally dozens of hours spent crafting sentences, finding an appropriate word, or searching for a way to communicate an idea that people could understand and find helpful. Those drafts, which would go into an electronic dumpster somewhere, represented a part of me. They represented my creativity, my wisdom and perhaps my failure. In those drafts were both my weaknesses and my strengths.

What I want to say, I suppose, is that it's very difficult for me to hit the "delete" key. The likelihood that I'll ever use those insufficient drafts is small to none. I don't foresee that happening. When something else comes along, I'll write something original. But I'm having difficulty hitting the delete key.

I can't let go, even of that which is inadequate.

Dreaming of an Expansive Life

The language and symbols of spiritual stories are nuanced. If we interpret all spiritual teaching with a rigid, "one-size-fits-all" schematic, we will miss the deeper truths that might be intended for us. Teachings that open us to the Spirit are pliable, shaping themselves around specific persons and events so that we experience truth at ever-deeper levels of our being. To apply a single interpretive mindset across the board to all spiritual language misses the point.

For instance, in biblical narrative we tend to think of darkness as "bad," representing evil. And we tend to think of light as "good," representing healing or God. Many times that interpretive framework is accurate. There are plenty of times in the Bible when we are encouraged to leave the darkness -- and the "deeds of darkness" -- in order to walk in the light.

Or another interpretive framework says that nighttime and darkness are the times for sleep. And since slumber, dullness, and inattentiveness are major impediments in the spiritual journey, darkness and nighttime become symbols of the time we sleep or are inattentive to the presence and activity of God. We may not be actively engaged in evil-doing, but we are dull and sluggish of spirit. We are sleep-walking through life. So encouragement to step into the daylight in spiritual language is often a call to "wake up!" Light, then, represents spiritual alertness, seeing, awakening, and enlightenment.

Still, there is another interpretive framework for darkness and light that we frequently miss, especially in spiritual stories. Night and darkness also can represent dreaming, the deepest longings of the soul, the time when our controlling mind can no longer govern what lives in our souls. Dreams are very often wild, free, vivid, imaginative, untamed, and portray a world where "all things are possible." When we sleep and dream, we are in a state of consciousness in which our minds can no longer put the brakes on what lives deep inside us. Dreams are the soul's vocabulary, telling us in symbolic language of possibilities that in our waking hours we wouldn't let ourselves imagine.

In the same way, daytime in spiritual story can represent a flat-earth view of life that is constricted and confined, bounded by rules and limitations, hemmed in by "oughts," "shoulds," and "musts." We may prefer to live in the daytime world because we fear being out of control, so we shut out the language of the soul. Especially in our culture, we tend to think that the daytime world of work, home, leisure, and responsibility is the only world there is. We stop dreaming and stop listening to the soul.

So as the nighttime represents expansiveness, creativity, and the vitality of the Spirit, the daytime can represent constriction, control, and a firmly-held, ego-driven life.

The Bible is full of dreamers. Joseph and Jacob in the Old Testament, and Peter in the New Testament were each given dreams and visions that opened them to God and to new realities that they could not have envisioned in their own thinking.

In our cultural setting, if we're not careful, living only in the daylight hours, we grow small and constricted, living only as far as our minds can imagine. We tend to call this the "real world." Actually, we only live in this "real world" --which we can personally control and manipulate -- out of fear of the other world of Spirit where we are not in control. This is flat-earth living!

If, on the other hand, we can live in a more imaginative balance, our lives grow larger, fuller, and more expansive. We begin to fill out the purpose for which we were created. We dare to reach out, to touch stars. We envision new possibilities. We begin to listen to the wisdom of our own souls, where we are most deeply and intimately connected to God.

David Whyte's poem "What to Remember when Waking" speaks to this tension between nighttime and daylight.

In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.

[in David Whyte, The House of Belonging, 26 - 28]

Levertov and the Source of Creativity

In a class a couple of weeks ago, discussing the Genesis 1 creation account, I said that authentic creativity comes from within, from the soul of a person. The human person may rearrange some pieces in the outer world, on the periphery of his/her life, in a way that brings about something unique; however, true creativity arises from the innermost core of a person -- that place at which we are most connected to the Divine -- and brings into being something that did exist previously. I said that this may be part of what it means to be created in the "image and likeness of God."

This morning I read this poem by Denise Levertov. It's good to hear another voice, just to know that I'm not entirely crazy all the time!


Misnomer

They speak of the art of war,
but the arts
draw their light from the soul's well,
and warfare
dries up the soul and draws its power
from a dark and burning wasteland.
When Leonardo
set his genius to devising
machines of destruction he was not
acting in the service of art,
he was suspending
the life of art
over an abyss,
as if one were to hold
a living child out of an airplane window
at thirty thousand feet.

(Evening Train, p. 79)