NSoC 3: Seeds of Contemplation

See Notes on this series...
The lofty themes of God's will and God's love are exposed as the seeds of contemplation in chapter 3. Not surprisingly, Christ's parable of the sower is foundational to Merton's thesis, and he takes the illustration deeper than its normal application as the mere word of God preached. The source and sort of the seed and the fertileness of our fields to receive it are probed here.

Merton says that every expression of God's will is in a sense a word of God and thence a seed. This opens the possibility of continual dialog with God that transcends mere conversation but, as he beautifully describes, "a dialogue of love and of choice[, a] dialogue of deep wills."

This will of God is manifest in our lives not as tangible rote law of a dictatorial and domineering father but as "interior invitation of personal love." The former more often results in seeds of hatred and our desire to "fly as far as possible" from this God. He places a lot of significance in what our ideas about God are, even though we are incapable of describing him as he is. He says that our idea of God says more about us than it does about him.

Merton then explains that our ability to respond to this love depends on how attached we are to that external self he defined in the previous chapter. If I am prisoner to that self, how can God plant seeds of liberty in me? How can I see God if my focus is on maintaining that external self?

Merton paints a beautiful picture of God's love in the midst of heat, cold, fulness, hunger, and labor. He says that if we only consider the cold, the heat, the hunger, the thirst, the success, or the failure that we will only find emptiness. But our goal is not mere success or pleasure, but finding the will of God in the midst of the journey.

How is that done? Merton defines God's will as the demands of truth, justice, mercy, and love. Seeking truth, respecting others, and sharing in God's love for our neighbors exemplify the will of God.

Merton states then that work itself can be an expression of the will of God. I am obeying God in my work if I am true to the task at hand, whatever it may be. Care, excellence, respect, and attention allows God to use me as an instrument, and thus work cannot be considered an acontemplative act though my mind might be occupied with the task. However, "unnatural toil," such as work for greed or fear, "unnatural, frantic, anxious work" done in distraction due to either our sin or the sin of society, cannot be blessed along with "sound, healthy work." We must seek the truth in all we do.

Quaff:
Several thoughts from contemporary and theological sources came to mind as I mulled over this chapter. First, the idea that every moment of our lives plants something in our souls is used by Natalie Goldberg in her book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, as she describes the writing life. All our experiences are tossed like "...thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grounds, and old steak bones..." to produce, eventually, the flowers of poems and stories, nourished in rich black dirt.

Second, Merton's description of our ideas about God reminded me of A. W. Tozer's writing in The Knowledge of the Holy, where he states that "the most important thing about us is what we think about when we think about God," and "the essence of idolatry is entertaining thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him." Tozer really eats my lunch.

Merton says God's will is all around us, and in reading his description of it I couldn't help but think of Jesus' answer to the greatest commandment question: "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Someone asked him once how to inherit eternal life, and his answer was essentially the same as the greatest commandment question, but he used as an explanation the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is essentially Merton's definition of doing the will of God.

Quibble:
The will of God is one of those God-talk phrases that I fear evangelicalism has corrupted, or at least grossly misunderstood. Often, the will of God is presented as some lost treasure or unsolved puzzle, and our assignment as Christians is to either stumble upon it somewhere just off an uncharted jungle trail or twist the cryptex until the right combination is registered and the secret pops out. "God has a wonderful plan for your life" has set many an explorer off on an adventure, scavenger list in hand, fearful of making a wrong turn or a wrong decision, or even worse, paralyzing some against movement at all.

Quip:
I love Ted Kooser's definition of "love thy neighbor" in his poem Boarding House:

The blind man draws his curtains for the night
and goes to bed, leaving a burning light

above the bathroom mirror. Through the wall,
he hears the deaf man walking down the hall

in his squeaky shoes to see if there's a light
under the blind man's door, and all is right.

Query:

• Do I see and respect the rights and needs of my neighbor?
• Do I see my work as doing the will of God?
• Do I entertain proper thoughts about God and who he is?