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THOMAS
MERTON NEWSLETTER 4A SHORT MINI-RETREAT WITH THOMAS MERTON
December 18, 2000
On December 10th, like many of you, I had a mini-retreat with Thomas Merton. The following gives the results of that retreat.
I am so restless. Nervous. I can't sleep. I get up at 6:15 am. Get some organge juice, a cup of coffee, check my e-mail quicly, turn on the Christmas tree lights, put the puppy in my lap, cut on the heat--I am ready!
Centering- Two minutes of uneasy silence. I accidently hit a small bell. It shatters the silence. The bell is a beginning. Like the bells at Gethsemani that awaken each of the seven worship services a day.
I read Psalm 95. - thanksgiving, music, song, hands forming dry land, bow down, worship, kneel -- hear his voice. I am drawn into prayer. I hum the praise hymn Give Thanks.
I read Susan Baker's poem, What happened to the summer?
FOR THOMAS MERTON
Maybe today was the day when I should have asked myself
What has happened to the summer.
The moon hangs heavy in the sky,
Your call hangs heavy in my heart,
And it seems strange to be here.
What is it to me to suffer so little for just a glimpse of Heaven When You, O God, bore the marks of hatred
That I might know the grace of Love?
Maybe today was the day when I should have asked myself What has happened to my Self.
You cast your ghostly eyes upon my soul,
You brood over my spirit,
And I no longer belong here.
What is it to surrender so completely to Thy will
That I no longer see, taste, feel or touch through my own devices,
But You, my Lord, through me?
Maybe today was the day when I should have asked myself What it means to pray.
And to have but one prayer, to have a single desire:
To belong here in Thy Holy Chamber.
What is it to love You so perfectly that I would die for You, Live for You, renounce all for You?
Maybe today was the day that I understood
What it means to be free.
Or maybe it begins tomorrow.
And yet, this day is only a smudge in the shadows of Heaven. ---
Susan Baker---It has been a 7 month dry spell. Unemployed. Often a sense of loneliness and desolation. A vague fear often building in my soul. But, there has been the computer. I have developed new skills with it. I have had many hours of silence and meditation.
She mentions the "grace of love." His caring past the first glimpse of snow and a partial full-month outside. Yes, the grace of love. Merton has brought me many new friends via the e-mail, the internet. They tell me their stories. I am blessed!
Surrender- I can never seem to surrender enough. It is so hard and I like to have my way, not God's way. "Lord, help me really to surrender!" To thy will not mine.
The Holy Chamber - a place of renouncing all for you!
A Time of Remembrance - questions to consider..
How did you become acquainted with Merton. What was the situation in your life at the time?It was 1970. I was at Southern Seminary working on a Master of Divinity Degree and pastoring a small church of 20 people in Indiana.
At times I wrote poetry. Life Sketch or Jonah's Dream. One poetry book made a difference. A Voice Within by Hayden Carruth. And for the first time I read the poetry of Tom Merton: St. Malachy and the mournful joy of Elergy for the Monastery Barn.
Merton became a murmur at a Southern Baptist Seminary and I heard the tales that even some of our professors (Hinson, Francisco, Moody, and Garrett) had slipped out of the seminary and made pilgrimages to a monastery hidden years away, 55 miles from Louisville near Bardstown.
Why was Merton so important then to you? What did God have to do with it?Often times God sows seeds in our life that bear fruition later. Merton was like that for me. And there were so many parallels and commonalities in our lives. We each wrote poetry, were religious, had life changing experiences and entered monasteries or seminaries at the same age - 26!
What is the secret? The secret of his life that so entangles him with me? "He speaks to my condition," says Hinson. Or, he hated chainsaws and tractors. Maybe that was it.His voice then, and now, still speaks! And God brought the seeds of his life into mine.
What writings of Merton have been most influencial in your life? Why those particular writings?
My favorites are still Seven Storey Mountain, the Sign of Jonas, The Silent Life, and the journals.
For some reason I am attached to the earlier periods of his life when he had first entered the monastery.There was an exhurberance in his life in those days. A majestic God he discovered in the silence of the cloister. I still love that period most in his life.
If you could ask one question of Merton what would it be?
Father Louis, did anyone ever know how much you really cared/loved for M?
You are visitor #
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Think of one person who has come into your life because of Thomas Merton and pray for that person.
One person who came into my life because of Merton was Wayne Burns. We met in October of 1972. We were both pastoring churches in Talladega County, Alabama.
Merton came later! Together, we went to the Abbey of Gethsemani and saw it together for the first time. In a way it was a deception. We were going to see the Shaker village at Shakertown.
But, we got lost, or lied? How were we to know that if you read the map wrong, that Trappist, Kentucky, was on the way to Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.
Yes, Lord--thank you for Wayne Burns and what he has meant to my life. THANKS!
Read a chapter or one of your favorite Thomas Merton works.
Firewatch, the epilogue to Sign of Jonas, is my favorite. It was so poetic. So meaningful.
"It is my time to be the night watchman, the eloquent night. Moonlight reaches through the windows into a dark place. Fragments of a severe and necessary information."
Alone, silenmt, wandering on your appointed rounds through the corridors of a hige, sleeping monastery, you come around the corner and find yourself face to face with your monastic past and with themystery of your vocation."
To search your soul .... in the heart of the darkness. The things that really mattered -----
I find myself rushing, trying to get done. But, in reality, Merton's thoughts drive me down an unfamiliar path. What really matters in my life? Why does it take God so long to answer our prayers? What, and why, are their special events in my life I can't forget?
I year ago, this month (Dec.23, 1999) my Mother died. She told me she was wanting to see the year 2000! She missed it a week. Why is that one week so important now? Or my sorrow builds day by day as it closes in on the year makr."On all sides I am confronted by questions that I cannot answer," says Merton. He adds, "Now is the time to meet your God."
You never answer when I expect." "There is no cry that was not heard by you before it was uttered." There is greater comfort in the susbstance of silence than in the answer to a question. The shadows serve you."Communion and Closure -- I close with thanksgiving for the warm puppy in my lap, the warmth of a small electric furnance, the white lights on the Christmas tree, the stirring of my wife of 33 years, and the soft gentle rain stirring outside.
Thanks be to God. It was December 10, 2000.
Take a short break. 15 minutes. Walk and absorb what you have just read. Reflect on what you read has been saying to you.
Write in your journal what this time has meant to you, or any new discoveries.
Spend time praying with a thanksgiving heart for this time and any messages God has spoken as you listen.
Closing Prayer
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen ( Jude 24-25)QUESTIONS IN WAITING--If you also shared in the mini-retreat, I would enjoy reading the comments you had also. Just e-mail to Dan Phillips at dphillip@edge.ne
WHERE I AM GOING
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton - Thoughts in Solitude
