Lenten Day Twenty-eight: Thomas Merton

“Let me rest in Your will and be silent.”  Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. Most of all, he was a lover of silence, and despite all his other “doings,” he found “being” his greatest blessing. Again and again, I, though, have to remind myself about seeking silence, making room for silence, and practicing silence.  I could have an entire stack of quotation cards just about silence and still find it a challenge which is puzzling because I am an off the chart introvert.

To clarify, I enjoy doing in silence.  As friends and family have learned, I’m not the one to start a conversation with in the morning.  We don’t keep the TV or radio on during the day, I rarely have a podcast going, I don’t listen to books on tape, and I can’t work with music playing anywhere in the house.  Yet I’m not really sinking into the silence. Instead, my brain is very busily humming along, thinking about blogs, thinking about what I’m supposed to do next, thinking about what I need to pick up at the grocery store or whose email message or phone call I need to return.  This type of silence is not what Merton is addressing.

Merton’s entire passage is this:  “Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.”  This type of silence is about being, about un-doing our wills, our work, our busyness, our fears and even our thoughts.  This type of silence is about being still before God/the Divine and simply resting, being quiet, being receptive to whatever God may want us to hear, which could be nothing but silence itself.  This kind of silence is where “deep calls to deep,” (Psalm 42:7) in the inner sanctuary of our hearts where we alone abide with God alone.  It is an unplugging from everything and everyone around us (all those voices of the world) so that we can open our hearts to the warmth, light, and love of the Divine.  And yet . . .

It’s hard to sit quietly, even harder to calm those swinging monkeys (as Merton called them) scattering through the tree limbs of our minds.  The brain does love to think.  That’s why practicing silence is just that—practice.  It requires attention, intention, and desire.

My coffee mug reads “It’s too early for you to say things.”  It’s too early for me to say things, too.  But it’s never too early to rest in the silence of God.

Blessings ~ Rosemary