Prayer and meditation have an important part to play in opening up new ways and new horizons. Traditionally, the ideas of prayer, meditation and contemplation have been associated with this deepening of one’s personal life and this expansion of the capacity to understand and serve others. Without a more profound human understanding derived from exploration of the inner ground of human existence, love will tend to be superficial and deceptive. A certain depth of disciplined experience is a necessary ground for fruitful action. This does not mean that they are incompatible with action, with creative work, with dedicated love. Prescinding from any idea of an institution or even of a religious organization, I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development, which are not compatible with a purely external, alienated, busy-busy existence.
When I speak of the contemplative life I do not mean the institutional cloistered life, the organized life of prayer.
As a devotion for today, I offer a couple of paragraphs from the chapter bearing the books’ title. I have had the text on my bookshelf since my seminary days in Chicago. In 1973, Image Books published a series of Merton’s essays in a collection entitled Contemplation in a World of Action. He’s perhaps best known today for his spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which ends with the line: Sit finis libri, non finis quaerendi (“Here ends the book, but not the searching”). Merton’s superiors at the monastery noticed his talent for writing and encouraged him to pursue it Merton wrote more than 70 books over the course of his lifetime, along with 2,000 poems and many essays and lectures. Many of his books combine theology, politics, and interreligious dialogue, particularly with East Asian religious traditions and their connections with Christianity.
I return to the idea again and again: ‘Give up everything, give up everything!’” While a student at Columbia University, he decided to write his master’s thesis on William Blake, and found himself deeply influenced by him. After a few more years of study, Merton converted to Christianity, and in 1941 entered a Trappist abbey in Kentucky, where he lived for most of his life. He wrote in his diary: “Going to the Trappists is exciting. Today is the birthday of Thomas Merton, born in Prades, France, in 1915. Contemplation in a World of Action, and a contemplative gift from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus
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