I keep my favorite Merton quote on my desk so that I read it every day.
Just go on walks,
live in peace,
let change come quietly and invisibly on the inside.
Thomas Merton
This quote reminds me that living a spiritual life is less about my efforts and more about letting God work in and through me.
Spiritual writer, James Finley, spent six years living as a monk at the Abby of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. While he was there, Thomas Merton was his spiritual director. Merton once told him to quit working so hard at prayer and asked him to think of an apple on a tree. The apple does not squint its eyes and tighten its jaw trying to ripen through its own efforts. It simply stays connected to the tree and lets the sun wash over it. The apple does not control either its growth or its ripening, but grows and ripens in God’s time.
In our spiritual life, we can get caught up in our own efforts to make ourselves into whatever image of spiritual perfection we have created in our minds. Then we ruminate over and analyze all the ways we fall short of our imagined spiritual perfection. The result of this process is that we spend more time contemplating ourselves than God.
The Psalmist advises us,
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
Psalm 34:8
This psalm tells us that we do not need a theory of existence or a philosophy of life to find meaning. Meaning is concrete and as close to us as our next breath. We feel it in the warmth of the sun. We see it in the beauty of a flower. We taste it in a warm cup of tea. We hear it in the song of a bird. We experience it in the comfort of ritual, in friendship, kindness, and compassion. As we learn to taste and see the goodness of the Lord all around us in the world God created and redeemed, we awaken to the meaning present in every moment. We live where we are, solid, stable, and rooted. We hear our heart’s home calling to us as we find our refuge in God.
A friend and colleague of mine, Fr. Nathan Munsch, OSB, died a year and a half ago from ALS. I remember visiting with him when he was in the advanced stages of the disease. He was wheelchair bound, had no use of his legs, limited use of his arms, and was dependent on an apparatus to help him breathe. Our visit took place outside and when it was time for me to go, I asked him if he wanted me to walk back inside with him to the infirmary where he was staying. He said,
No, I want to stay here and look at the sun.
Every day, I come outside to look at the sun.
Though he had been suffering under this cruel disease for years, gratitude continued to shape his days. This dying man continued to taste and see the goodness of God by noticing and savoring the concrete gifts God gave him every day of his life. Through his remarkably strong faith, he showed me what it means to be happy because you take refuge in God.
