NSoC 14: Integrity

See Notes on this series...

Merton titles this chapter "Integrity" but spends most of his words on humility.

He regrets that the artist and the religious man alike waste their lives and talents trying to be other artists or other saints, writing other's stories, painting other's pictures, expressing other's spirituality. People want to "magnify themselves by imitating what is popular" because they are "too lazy" to think of alternatives, too rushed to be themselves.

Merton equates integrity and humility by explaining that the saint's humility is what separates him from everyone else. He defines humility as "being precisely the person you actually are before God," and since there is none other like you, to have humility means to be unique. But this uniqueness is not manifest in the external, for it has nothing to do with mere appearance or tastes. The truly humble man doesn't worry whether or not he is in conformity with others relative to what he wears or what other preferences he may have. His interests are only those things that help him find God. The rest is rubbish.

His peace comes from the knowledge that what edifies him might be a curse to someone else, and vice versa. But he has peace in this: "...[i]t takes heroic humility to be yourself and to be nobody but the man, or the artist, that God intended you to be."

This takes time. The reward for shortcutting the process is to be admired for the "spiritual disguise" that is crafted from the emulated externals of others. In fact, Merton says, the presence of a saint might be signified by the difficulty other have in knowing what to make of him. His life doesn't fit the patterns or the standards that others try to set for him. As an example, Merton briefly references Benedict Joseph Labre, who was dismissed by both the Trappists and the Carthusians as unfit for their orders, and who died as a wanderer in the streets of Rome, later to be canonized a saint.

Quaff:
This chapter hits really close to home. I've done a lot of work in recent years to peel away the layers of who I'm not, trying to get to who I am. I still have a lot of work ahead. How I long to be precisely the person I actually am before God.