“Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and being.”
Merton’s definition of “contemplation” is in fact his definition of the Via Positiva. Even the words are similar to Matthew’s (awe, wonder, gratitude, sacred), but especially the meaning that transpires, as a whole, from those few lines. Of course, Merton’s quote is also truly Mertonian. It is his personal way of expressing the archetypal energy of Via Positiva.
I think that the remarkable impact that such opening lines had in 1962 was due precisely to their being an expression of something that Catholics had been pining for, consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time. After centuries of spirituality consisting primarily of “mortification of the flesh,” here was a monk, belonging to an austere order — and thus trustworthy — who spoke clearly and forcefully about the primary and spontaneous experience of being alive and being in awe of life itself as a sacred experience.
In 1967, Thomas Merton wrote to 27-year-old Matthew Fox in support of his idea of focusing on spiritual theology, saying: “I think that we are lying down on the job when we leave others to investigate mysticism, while we concentrate on more ‘practical’ things. What people want of us, after all, is the way to God.”
At this point Merton had already shifted to a notion of spirituality that included a radical and even humorous criticisms of the excesses of asceticism, a positive evaluation of mystical experience as God-experience, and — above all — a focus on the awareness of the sacredness of all beings and existence itself. His diaries are replete with “descriptions” of “nature” that are nothing else but a report on his mystical life. This was his “way to God,” or at least the very foundation of it.
A beautiful diary entry that I love, and Matthew quotes as well, is the following:
Warm sun. Perhaps these yellow wild-flowers have the mind of little girls. My worship is a blue sky and ten thousand crickets in the deep wet hay of the field. My vow is the silence under their song. I admire the woodpecker and the dove in simple mathematics of flights. Together we study practical norms. The plowed and planted field is red as a brick in the sun and says: ‘Now my turn!’ Several of us begin to sing.
I remember misunderstanding this page the first time I read it, decades ago. I thought that some monks had joined him in the field to sing. But, obviously, the “we” is all the creatures, and the singing worship is one that includes Fr. Louis — as he was known in the Kentucky monastery — as one of them. It is enough to read this page to realize that all anthropocentrism had already left him when he wrote it.
Again in New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton writes: “The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.” *
It would be a serious mistake to take such Mertonian expressions about nature as sentimental. On the contrary, they are the affirmation of a lover and a fighter.
His immersive experience of creation produced in fact some theological statements that shattered the Catholic establishment of his time, anticipating the more articulated Via Positiva that Matthew was going to present in his Original Blessing. He affirmed the innate sanctity of all creatures and mocked the “theology of the devil” founded on the notion that “created things are evil” — the Manichean belief hiding behind St.Augustine’s speculations on original sin. He was really a trailblazer, and I am very glad that Matthew wrote an entire book to recognize his role in the Creation Spirituality movement.
Merton preached a profound and readily available Via Positiva. But we cannot be passive, we must respond: “Dance in the sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction. You fool, it is life that makes you dance: have you forgotten?”
* Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions, copyright © 2007.
Quotations from Matthew Fox, A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 47 and 54.
See also Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity.
And Fox, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart.
Banner Image — The Via Positiva: A Slavic group dancing in nature. Photo by Artur Bolzhurov on Pexels.
Queries for Contemplation
How can we dance during a genocide? How do you think that Merton would answer this question? How do you answer?
Recommended Reading
A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & The Transformation of Christianity
A modern-day theologian’s call for the radical transformation of Christianity that will allow us to move once again from the hollow trappings of organized religion to genuine spirituality. A New Reformation echoes the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 and offers a new vision of Christianity that values the Earth, honors the feminine, and respects science and deep ecumenism.
“This is a deep and forceful book….With prophetic insight, Matthew Fox reveals what has corrupted religion in the West and the therapy for its healing.” ~Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography
Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart
Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.” — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty Goodbye.
