A monastic lesson

Love this from Thomas Merton.....

[i]I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably have not learned otherwise: to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt................In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accepting life, and everything in life as a gift, and clinging to none of it, as far as you are able. You give some of it to others, if you can. Yet one should be able to share things with others without bothering too much about how they like it, either, or how they accept it. Assume they will accept it, if they need it. And if they don't need it, why should they accept it? That is their business. Let me accept what is mine and give them all their share, and go my way.

All life tends to grow like this, in mystery inscaped with paradox and contradiction, yet centered in its very heart, on the divine mercy.........."[/i]

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SW-User

I see in that the inner strength and calm of the stoic. I used to read a little of Merton way back, i also liked at the time Paul Tillich which gave a Liberal Lutheran spin on Nietzscheanism.

Tariki

@SW-User Hi again, I'm fairly familiar with Merton's letters and Journals. Life giving stuff.

(Oh, he loved his Olly, as he called the various beers he could savour when outside the "stoic" atmosphere of the monastery walls.....😀)

SW-User

@Tariki More lively than them i imagine :)

Tariki

@SW-User From a letter written in 1964.....

[i]I see clearer than ever that I am not a monk.........................I expect to live for a few more years, hoping that I will not go nuts...............This, I think, is about the best I can hope for. It sums up the total of my expectations for the immediate future. If on top of this the Lord sees fit in His mercy to admit me to a non-monastic corner of heaven, among the beatniks and pacifists and other maniacs, I will be exceedingly grateful. Doubtless there will be a few pseudo-hermits among them and we will all sit around and look at each other and wonder how we made it. Up above will be the monks, with a clearer view of their own status and a more profound capacity to appreciate the meaning of status and the value of having one.....
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