Thomas Merton and self-isolation by Fiona Gardner

‘Yes I feel, and I am sure you do, that we are really completely in God’s hands and that, with all our incapacity, we can serve Him very well by staying there and responding to what our times ask of us, insofar as we can. If only He will give us the grace of lucidity and strength in all the diabolical confusion of the world – a confusion in which we share. How deeply we are involved in what we condemn.’

This is taken from one of the over 10,000 letters that Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Trappist monk, poet and prophet wrote. This extract to John J. Wright is dated 1964, but so much of what he writes to the many people in the 1950s and 1960s seeking spiritual direction, is advice and consolation that could so easily apply to our contemporary world. Some of his letters on what it’s like living as a monastic, and later on his own in a hermitage can offer solace to us in our state of social isolation. Seeing this time as a retreat is one possible way of viewing what is happening and the enforced restriction on our activities.

Thomas Merton wrote to Rosemary Radford Ruether in March 1967 about the hermit life. The letter, Merton admits later, is somewhat defensive as he was reacting to her accusation that he, Merton, was cutting himself off in some ways from the world, and the struggle for justice in the world, by retreating into the woods. In our current pandemic we are not willingly retreating into the forest, but metaphorically we are retreating to our individual cells. In his defence of monastic concerns, Merton sees that these concerns are in fact human and universal. It’s about stripping off the veneer of the social world and reducing oneself to ‘a plain, simple’ person. Merton continues: ‘This condition of mere humanity does not require solitude in the country, it can be and should be realised anywhere. This is just my way of doing it. What would seem to others to be the final step into total alienation seems to me to be the resolution of all alienation and the preparation for a real return without masks and without defences into the world.’  

I like the idea of returning to the world after time apart without masks. The actual face mask has become such a symbol of our contamination and fear of being infected by or infecting one another; but the infection that does not recognise nationality, race, faith, gender and sexuality reminds us that there is more that unites than divides us. The psychological masks and defences are usually what we use to present ourselves to the world; if they begin to be dismantled as we have time out then maybe we can see that they are less needed.

Merton did not underestimate the trials of the hermit life and self-isolation when writing to Dorothy Day: ‘The hermit life is no joke at all, and no picnic, but in it one gradually comes face to face with the awful need of self-emptying and even of a kind of annihilation so that God may be all … Then that other word “Follow”…’ This sober comment contrasts with Merton’s joy that he shares with Catherine de Hueck Doherty: ‘But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the sky and see the utter nonsense of everything, including all the solemn stuff given out by professional asses about the spiritual life and simply to burst out laughing, and laugh and laugh, with the sky and the trees because God is not in words, and not in systems, and not in liturgical movements, and not in ‘contemplation’ with a big C, or in asceticism or in anything like that, not even in the apostolate. Certainly not in books. I can go on writing them, for all that, but one might as well make paper airplanes out of the whole lot.’ 

What Merton reminds us though is of God’s continual presence; as he says in one of his last talks to the novices before moving to the hermitage, we obscure God’s presence by our worries and cares, but if we can let go, ‘if we abandon ourselves to Him and forget ourselves we see it sometimes and we see it maybe frequently: that God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything – in people and in things and in nature and in events and so forth.

So that it becomes very obvious that He is everywhere, he is in everything, and we cannot be without Him. You cannot be without God. It’s impossible, it’s just simply impossible.’ In a reassuring letter worth taking to heart, Merton writes to a fellow woman religious, ‘I would therefore accept the difficulties of your present situation … Do not be discouraged. He loves you very much. If you were the only person in the world, and needed Him to do so, he would descend to earth again and die for you. How then can you fear that he will abandon you? Trust in Him and repay His love with your whole heart …’ 

I can highly recommend Thomas Merton as a great spiritual companion, and perhaps especially during times of trial – compassionate, funny and challenging.

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Each day, we will post a short article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life. Sometimes this will be written with reference to one of their books, and sometimes about how they are living in response to the coronavirus and our current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the needs and interests of all.

Today’s post is by Fiona Gardner, author of Precious Thoughts: Daily Readings from the Correspondence of Thomas Merton, which you can buy here.