Monday Morning with Merton: Sand in our Eyes?
“The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit. The desert was the region in which the Chosen People had wandered for forty years, cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had travelled directly to it. God’s plan was that they should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back upon the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone.”
[Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude, pgs. 4- 5]
I found this observation from Merton truly inspirational. The Israelites were in the desert to learn about love and complete dependence on God but they weren’t aware of it at the time. Isn’t that so true of the empty and arid seasons of our lives?
I guess wisdom comes when we have learned to embrace and actually seek these desolate places as Jesus did after his baptism. It is there that we will find our relationship with the Lord deepen and our mission become clear.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:32 amThe sacrament of the desert.
He is indeed a jealous God! Yet even those first desert-wanderers were to be communal in their worship, and were the first to struggle to learn what God desires, which we know much later and more clearly from Jesus’ new commandment.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:48 amAnd isn’t it just so with us too, Gabrielle?
June 30th, 2008 at 1:22 pmWe who are taken out to lonely places, deprived of all the things we would normally use for support, only to find they were only short- term props - the true and only pillar being God Himself.
You do Monday morning, I’ll take Monday night (you’ll have to check my blog). However, I fear that I may have meandered in the desert a little.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:13 am“They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had traveled directly to it.” I really appreciate this line. There are some days when I wish I could go “directly to it,” but again He is my God and I must follow Him! Thank you for this it has been a comfort to me right now!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 1:19 amThere is something in each of your comments that I reflected on too as I chose this passage (and I’ll come and visit you asap, deacon dan): Terry’s observation that the Israelites weren’t aware of God’s motive at the time and the wonderful opportunity they had received, C’s comment that they were the first to really struggle to learn God’s will, Ann’s reflection that we are often “taken out to lonely places”, Cathy’s honesty (and she probably speaks for most of us) in wanting to be taken directly there…
One thing that had not crossed my mind though was what C said about their call to be communal in their worship; very good point.
I see more and more the story of the forty years in the desert as a spiritual metaphor; God’s Chosen People struggled all that time, and had to learn the hard way. We have the benefit of their experience and the recording of their struggles to help us understand prayer and the spiritual journey.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:06 pm