1/31/15

Today marks the 100th birthday of Thomas Merton, monk, activist, and writer. Reading Merton was one of the primary catalysts for my journey into Catholicism and Christianity in general, and I must give him a lot of the credit for helping me see the richness of Christian contemplativism.

My first experience with Merton was his short anthology, The Wisdom of the Desert, which I found had a lot in common with the wisdom of many of the Thai Forest teachers, whose ascetic lifestyle in many ways mirrors that of the early Christian monks and nuns who lived contemplative lives in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. More than anything else, reading this book planted the seeds of my 'double belonging' (Buddhist and Christian), although it took close to six years for those seeds to bear fruit from their initial planting.

I started attending mass at a nearby Orthodox church more, drawn towards both the beauty of the church itself and the rituals performed within, and I was becoming more receptive to what wisdom Christianity had to offer; but the soil was still too barren. It'd take a few more years of spending time with people like Romanos, and reading things like In The Spirit of Happiness by the monks of New Skete and Merton's autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, for the soil of my heart to be fertile enough in spiritual understanding for those long-planted seeds to begin sprouting and eventually bloom into my present journey to know God—which I like to define as that which draws us towards virtue, the foundation and summit of consciousness, and the ground of being manifest in existence.

Merton's works brought me into contact with the Trappists and the deep, contemplative aspects of the Church combined with a spirit of social justice fuelled by his seemingly boundless compassion; and they continue to speak to me and help me on my spiritual journey, giving me guidance and encouragement when I need it. If it wasn't for Merton, I might not have ever discovered Our Lady of Guadalupe or St. Philip Neri, or the contemplative side of the Church that appeals to me so, which often goes unnoticed by many. Seeing that side of the Church, and being pointed towards books like The Cloud of Unknowing and The Way of the Pilgrim, made me curious about it, about how it could help me 'awaken' to the presence of God and "share in the divine nature"(2 Peter 1:4).

That he died while in Thailand at an inter-faith conference is also meaningful, I think. For me, he's become a saint of sorts—the patron saint of double belonging who's helping to illuminate the universal core of truth underlying most of the world's religions and bridge the superficial divides that separate us from one another.

Today I also had breakfast with Romanos, who's agreed to be my sponsor. I'm happy that he's able and willing, not only because he's been such an important part of this journey, but because of the insights he provides, as well. Few see and speak of the Church the way he does, and I've found his guidance these last four years invaluable. Whenever I talk to him, I always learn something new; and the way he talks about it, I always feel inspired.

On the way home from breakfast, for example, we got to talking about the Nicene Creed. As he was taking me through the Greek, he noted that poieten, the word often translated as 'maker,' is more literally rendered as 'poet.' I found that beautiful.