8/26/14

Finally had time to finish The Seven Storey Mountain. On the whole, I enjoyed the book. I see a lot of similarities between myself and the early Merton: the struggles with lust and pride and anger; the inner conflict between living a worldly life and the call to a contemplative one; the confusion and indecision; the convergence of seemingly random coincidences and happenstances leading one in an unforeseen direction, and the suffering of rebelling against one's very nature; etc. It was easy for me to see my own spiritual journey in his, as I think is the case for many who read it. And as I was finishing the book, one paragraph in particular, on 'active' vs. 'contemplative' orders, stood out to me:

This means, in practice, that there is only one vocation. Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by words, then by example.

I think in some shape or form, we all feel this call, and much of our existential suffering is caused by either fighting against it or else being unable to answer it. One of the reasons I think monastic life appeals to me, for example, is that I have trouble answering that call living in the world. Some people have worldly vocations that, for them, satisfies this, not only enriching their own life but the lives of the people around them. But some, like myself, never seem to find that place in the world, being pulled between renouncing the call to contemplation in order to satisfy our material and social responsibilities and renouncing worldly life in order to head the call to this interior life.

Ideally, I want to find a balance between the two. But at the same time, I find so much in the world alluring and distracting that I rarely seem able to pull myself away and dwell in a spirit of contemplative solitude. I suppose it's a form of moral weakness on my part, which is why the external trappings of monasticism appeal to me—they impose upon one externally the discipline one may not be able to impose upon themselves internally. For me, monastic habits/robes are like a symbolic shield against worldly vices and distractions, reminding one of their contemplative vocation and acting a kind of psychological talisman against the temptations we're all but powerless against.

In some ways, I think that I idealize monastic life; and in reading Thomas Merton's spiritual autobiography, I'm again reminded that even though the monastic life provides a certain kind of spiritual freedom and protection on the external level, we take all of our flaws and weaknesses with us behind those 'four walls of freedom' as well as our strengths. Eventually they'll catch up to us, and that's where the real challenge lies. In that external solitude, which in turn helps to cultivate internal solitude, we're confronted with ourselves, good, bad, and everything in between. Monastic life is an aid to an ongoing internal transformation and life of contemplation, not an end in and of itself.

One of the things this book has done for me is to inspire me to learn more about Christian monasticism, and the Trappists in particular. It's not something I ever explored even though I've always been fascinated by films and books focusing on monastic life or the various orders of monks and nuns. Much like Merton, who'd come into repeated contact with these things for years before actually investigating them, I simply appreciated them from afar, in a more or less abstract way. But now, I want to learn more. I want to see and read and experience what they have to offer. I want to make a similar journey and follow the call 'to the summit of perfection' and a deep interior life of contemplation.