NSoC 35: Renunciation

See Notes on this series...

Merton champions the routines of "work, poverty, hardship and monotony" that ties together the vast majority of the world's population. He reminds us that Jesus did not surround himself with mystics who sat on mountaintops and chanted the day away, but with working men who were the antithesis of the "professional holy."

He says that love of the poor and of poverty are necessary elements of contemplation, and that we would all do well to relate to the poor as best we can. We do all we can to avoid poverty, discomfort, and hardship rather than looking for God in poverty.

We don't have to be miserable and disgusted to enjoy the benefits of thrifty living and depending on God. Thin patched clothes and the haphazard harvest of the field is a good place for anyone to live, but "destitution" is taking things too far, for it is hard to contemplate amidst illness, hunger, and other physical struggles.

Merton further defines humility as "a dedicated acceptance of one's duty in life." If that means being learned in order to instruct others, then so be it. There is no humility, he says, in feigned unlearnedness, or "intellectual snobbery turned inside out."

A true contemplative, Merton says, knows how to mind his own business. He should fight the urge to reform those around him. "Pay as little attention as you can to the faults of other people and none at all to their natural defects and eccentricities."

All sanctity depends on renunciation but not just avoidance of sin or obvious faults. True renunciation goes to the core of our faults which are not obvious to us. We must rely on God for this for after we've dealt with our obvious faults we tend to blindness toward our "secret" faults. Our tendency is to stop the process when we reach the limit of what we ourselves can fix, and it is here we need God to help us continue. We must renounce "pleasures and possessions," and "even your own self," and let God "do some work."

Quaff:
Wow, what a chapter! This is the most practical chapter so far and one of the clearest in quite a while. I love Merton's attempt to balance the knowledge of poverty while advocating the debilitating potential of destitution. What a hard lesson. I've experienced it trying to teach my children about poverty and how most of the world has to live. I've experienced it in reentry mode from mission trips.

But what is harder still is dealing with the blind spots of my fallen nature. I know well my faults, but how much of what I think I'm doing well is really a blind spot?