Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain is a flawed masterpiece of spiritual autobiography. But frankly, any spiritual autobiography that isn’t flawed isn’t much good to those of us who, flawed as we are ourselves, are looking for companions in realism, guides who even if they know the road better than we do, still find it hard to follow. What makes Merton’s self-told story both fascinating and moving, is that it was written by a young man who, in later life, regretted some of the faults in his book that others were quick enough to point out to him.
With distance it’s obvious, at times embarrassingly obvious, that the book is marred by the triumphalism of pre Vatican II Roman Catholicism and by Merton’s dismissiveness, even caricature, of other Christian traditions.
And then also, at times Merton’s memories of his own sinfulness get him entangled in explaining the machinations and intricacies of his guilt-laden conscience to his readers, but only succeeding in a less than authentic moralising and self-despising, which is hindsight at its least helpful as it hints at a still uncompleted sense of renewal through forgiveness.
And his earlier separation of sacred and secular amounted to a practical dualism, a separation of life into categories of holiness that he later did much to oppose. Some of his best later writing provides important guidance on how to live a whole life in which such categories dissolve into a reconciled worldview, a balanced lifestyle and an openly generous spirituality that is alert to the presence and activity of God in all things. It’s this later Merton I most value, before his fascination with Eastern faith traditions pushed him towards much less orthodox interests.
But reading this book again over Christmas my respect and affection for Merton is undiminished. Because with all its flaws it is a book that tackles the big question of our life’s meaning, of whether life is driven by a sense of the rights and selfishnesses of the sovereign fragemented self, or whether life’s purpose is to be discovered in response to God’s call to lose ourselves in self-surrender to the sovereign love and severe mercy of the one in whose gift is our life, and in whose healing is our wholeness. I am a Baptist, not a Trappist; yet I sense a kindred spirit in Merton, one who knows as I know myself, that the call of God is both sovereign command and self-giving love. And that in our encounter with Christ we touch the deepest reality of all, the Reality that not only enables us to be, but wills our being, eternally, redemptively, entirely, and wills our being for no other reason than love for us, and for the whole creation that awaits its redemption.
The fact that Merton’s was a monastic vocation in the middle years of the 20th Century does nothing to reduce the relevance and very great importance of his insights into the disfigurements and diseases of 21st century existence. Indeed he believed that as a contemplative holding the world in his heart before God, he was called to see clearly, to speak courageously and to act prophetically on behalf of peace and humanity. And this is possible at all because it is the contemplative who takes time to see below the surface of things, to view the world from a spiritual standpoint, to develop and nurture resources of compassion and ethically galvanised sorrow for the state of the world.
As an Evangelical, I am aware of the deep resources of intentional silence, thoughtful solitude, contemplative and compassionate reflection, which the monastic tradition instils – and of which Evangelicals are often impatient or even suspicious. But in a world that is complex now beyond description, in which ethical choices are reduced to pragmatic options, when huge issues of the human future now need addressing, there is a need for a durable spiritual resourcefulness rooted deep in the Christian tradition. Our churches need to begin forming and nurturing people trained and rooted in contemplative wisdom, communities hungry for a recovery of personal holiness formed through prayer but allied to an ethical agility unafraid of tight-ropes. Globalisation and consumerism, terrorism and militarism, pluralism and polarisation, ecological urgency and theological uncertainty, are some of the oscillating voices of a world confused by its own complexity, and bankrupt by its own profligacy.
The writing and the legacy of Thomas Merton is for me, an important resource, empowering and articulating such politically responsive and spiritually responsible prayerfulness. I know of little in Evangelical spiritual practices which come near to such non-functional contemplative dwelling in the Reality of God so as to challenge pervasive realities such as global consumerism. Somewhere in our missiologically driven activism, there must be found place for contemplative prayer, dwelling deep in the truth and Reality of God, learning patiently to see clearly and act faithfully.
In the coming year, I will offer occasional reminders of Merton’s gift for transfusing contemplative prayer and faithful action into a life that is Christian, explicitly and outspokenly, Christian.
