Following Thomas Merton into Action

Friday, Feb. 03, 2017

I spent last weekend listening to a message I didn’t want to hear.

Not to shoot the messenger, but the unwelcome news came from Franciscan Father Dan Horan, who was in Salt Lake City to present a workshop on Saturday and the Aquinas lecture on Sunday. Both times he gave intriguing information about Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who wrote frequently about contemplation. 

Regular readers of this column will know that I find contemplation intriguing and rewarding, if often frustrating. I went to Fr. Horan’s workshop hoping to learn how to lessen the frustration and increase the reward from my contemplation sessions. What I heard instead was that it’s fine to go up on the mountaintop to spend time with God, but know that once you find him, he’s going to send you back down to work with his people.

That’s not what I wanted to hear. I’d rather stay on the mountaintop, where the atmosphere is clear and crisp and clean. Down here among the people, it’s dirty, clouded with emotions and rife with conflicting desires.  

Merton, however, followed this path from contemplation into action. In 1961 he said in a letter to Dorothy Day: “I don’t feel that I am called in conscience at a time like this to go on writing just about things like meditation, though that has its point. I cannot just bury my head in a lot of rather tiny and secondary monastic studies either. I think I have to face the big issues, the life-and-death issues.”

So, Merton shifted. The man who once wrote things like “How do you expect to arrive at the end of your journey if you take the road to another man’s city?” began to pen thoughts such as “I am more and more impressed by the fact that it is largely futile to get up and make statements about current problems. At the same time, I know that silent acquiescence in evil is also out of the question. I know too that there are times when protest is inescapable, even when it seems as useless as beating your head up against a brick wall. At the same time, when protest simply becomes an act of desperation, it loses its power to communicate anything to anyone who does not share the same feelings of despair.”

After I stopped pouting about not being able to stay on the mountain, I had to admit that the “new” Merton steadies me as much as the “old” one, although in a different way. The national news of this past weekend made me want to shriek in despair, but Merton is a reminder that if I want to communicate with those who don’t share my negative view of banning refugees and immigrants from the shores of this great country, I must act rather than simply complain. 

By acting, I’m joining good company – not only Merton but also Jesus, as Fr. Horan pointed out. We Catholics at the end of Mass are told to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” Fr. Horan reminded us at the workshop, and “if that Communion that you share in the liturgy doesn’t give you the energy to carry you forward into action, then what is the point? Because that is the whole point.” 

And so that action for me, now, must include not only contemplating the mysteries of God but also working for justice. I will write my congressional representatives, sign petitions, join in solidarity with others to help the least of my brethren. I hope you will join me in answering God’s call in this way.