NSoC 4: Everything That Is, Is Holy

See Notes on this series...
Merton addresses the proper consideration of things in this chapter. With what he calls a new perspective, he believes that we erroneously detach ourselves from things in order to become closer to God when in fact we should become detached from ourselves in order to see the proper relationship between God and things. Failure to do so relegates God to a "thing" in competition with his creation for our affection.

Merton states that nothing God created has evil in it, nor can anything he created stand in the way of our relationship with him. It is our holding on to our false self that is the problem as we pervert things and corrupt the relationship. Our holding onto the false idol of our ego makes the use of things unholy.

He corrects what he sees as a false belief that saints and contemplatives of old had no love for things and shunned the world and people around them. He accuses those who hold this false belief of fostering a sense of morality that is nourished by a love of guilt. These people see the saints in perpetual turmoil over "spontaneity or enjoyment," even over something so base as a glass of cold water. He counters this caricature by explaining that the contemplative can love and enjoy created things and even give greater glory to God implicitly than one who has contempt for the created or one who uses tired cliches to connect God and his creation without sounding worldly or materialistic. He says beautifully that "[t]he eyes of the saint make all beauty holy and the hands of the saint consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God..."

Merton says that until we love God perfectly we live in bondage to our false self, and in this bondage all created things have the potential to cause hurt. He defines a contradiction that exists within this bondage where the things God created to attract us to him actually draw us away from him. We look to these things for joy but find sorrow, pleasure but pain.

Quotation:

In all created things we, who do not yet perfectly love God, can find something that reflects the fulfillment of heaven and something that reflects the anquish of hell. We find something of the joy of blessedness and something of the pain of loss, which is damnation.

The fulfillment we find in creatures belongs to the reality of the created being, a reality that is from God and belongs to God and reflects God. The anquish we find in them belongs to the disorder of our desire which looks for a greater reality in the object of our desire than is actually there: a greater fulfillment than any created thing is capable of giving. Instead of worshipping God through His creation we are always trying to worship ourselves by means of creatures.

But to worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.

Merton clarifies that he is not talking about the body when he talks of the false self. If the body is "the temple of God," then we aren't to scorn it or misuse it, especially by dividing it from the soul by saying one is good and one is bad. He reminds us that being created in God's image means that it is a package deal. Too much emphasis on the soul to the demotion of the body results in "angelism." The other way around reduces life to the confines of the five senses and denies any reality outside of sensory experience. This person finds security within the confines of the senses and refuses heed God's call to the risk of faith.

Quaff:
We are studying Ray Vander Laan's In the Dust of the Rabbi on Wednesday nights at St. Peter's, and in one episode Vander Laan explains a fountain that would have flowed from the temple of Athena in the ancient Greek city of Priene. Anyone of that day who stopped for a drink or to wash their face or feet would have believed that the water came from the goddess Athena, since it flowed from her temple. Vander Laan challenges his students, who had stopped their hike at a waterfall prior to reaching the temple ruins, to see if any of them had even thought about God as they partook of the cool water there. Of course, none of them had. As a culture we aren't conditioned to. If we want water, we turn on a tap. Water comes from the water works through a series of filtration stations, pipes, and faucets. Right?

The "love of guilt" is a thorn in my flesh. It has been pervasive in my life. When conditions are marginal around here for wintry precipitation, I sometimes pray for snow so my kids can enjoy it. Then I realize that if I get my wish for snow, some homeless guy's cardboard box will get wet. I feel guilty. I throw out a bowl of soup that stayed too long in the refrigerator and I remember some of the poor villages I've been to in Ukraine and how welcome that soup, even a week old, would be. I feel guilty. I shred a box of old receipts, pay stubs, and bank statements, and ponder how much money has passed through my fingers in my lifetime. I feel guilty.

I served for a time in a recovery ministry, and I am convinced that Merton is spot-on in his assessment of the contradiction things provide when we don't love God perfectly. A hearty meal in one context loudly proclaims the glory of God, the bounty of the earth, the artistry of the chef, the diversity of the ingredients, but in another context... A fine wine, the form and function of the opposite sex, a pile of money, a five-mile run, a sleek automobile, a church sanctuary, a sandy beach; all hang in the balance between heaven and hell.

Quibble:
I keep one eye open to the goings-on in the SBC even though I aren't one anymore, and the debate continues in many quarters over the evils of alcohol. People who shout long and loud over the inerrency of scripture and castigate other denominations for reading things into the text have no qualms about projecting their holiness about alcohol into the pages of the Bible by stating that "wine" in scripture doesn't mean "wine" like we mean today, but that Jesus created and drank a watered-down version more akin to juice. Nevermind that the Bible warns against drunkenness, which I assume would only be a valid admonition if the juice was actually strong enough to make one drunk, in which case it would be wine. After pondering that convoluted eisegisis I needed a drink, so I had one. I didn't particularly care for it but I drank it on principle, without sin, and the sky didn't fall and I didn't drop dead and the clank the link of chain made as it struck the ground was pleasing to my ears.

Query:

• What does "love God perfectly" mean?
• How can I see the Creator of all things instead of the createdness of all things?
• How fine a line is there between innocently enjoying the things God has created and justifying as enjoyment my misuse of them?