In other words there is a great danger in facile and thoughtless verbalizations of spiritual reality. All true spiritual disciplines recognize the peril of idolatry in the irresponsible fabrication of pseudo-spiritual concepts which serve only to delude man and to subject him once again to a deeper captivity just when he seems on the point of tasting the true bliss and the perfect poverty of liberation. (p. 114)Twenty years before Jean Baudrillard wrote his philosophical treatise Simulacra and Simulation, and nearly forty years before the Wachowski brothers crafted the ideas into The Matrix, Merton, in his genius, was already there. Merton asserts that we tend to create a pseudo-reality built on the symbols, absolutes and pseudo-events of our day (152). Man is in danger of living in this crust of unreality where there is only black and white and those who do not share the same cracked worldview are vilified and tensions lead to violence and war.
I was fortunate enough to read Merton's thoughts on Simone Weil while at St. Gregory's Abby. I had access to their extensive library which has a theological and philosophical leaning. I was able to consult Weil's writings and read the article that was the subject of Merton's reflection. She writes of the way we create concepts with capital-letters that loose their meaning, being hollow husks that serve to divide good society from evil. In her day it was words like Capitalism, Communism, Security, in our day we could add Terrorism and Socialism to the list. She asserts that all of these words are incorrectly invoked as reasons to war. The only real reason for war left with any meaning is the state's capacity to wage war (83).
In the light of this dangerous tendency to false realities, which lead to violence, Merton offers the curative of contemplation. It is only as we face the true Reality, are immersed in the true Reality, that we can face injustice and violence down with Christian non-violence. We Christians must avoid the danger of the quote above of letting our Christianity become another layer of unreality - law unto itself.
Psalm 74(73) Ut quid, Deus?
ReplyDelete1 Why, O God, have you cast us off for ever?
Why blaze with anger at the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your people whom who chose long ago,
the tribe you redeemed to be your own possession,
the mountain of Zion where you made your dwelling.
3 Turn your steps to these places that are utterly ruined!
The enemy has laid waste the whole of the sanctuary.
4 Your foes have made uproar in your house of prayer:
they have set up their emblems, their foreign emblems,
5 high above the entrance to the sanctuary.
/6 Their axes have battered the wood of its doors.
They have struck together with hatchet and pickax.
7 O God, they have set your sanctuary on fire;
they have razed and profaned the place where you dwell.
8 They said in their hearts: "Let us utterly crush them;
let us burn every shrine of God in the land."
9 There is no sign from God, nor have we a prophet,
we have no one to tell us how long it will last.
10 How long, O God, is the enemy to scoff?
Is the foe to insult your name for ever?
11 Why, O Lord, do you hold back your hand?
Why do you keep your right hand hidden?
12 Yet God is our king from time past,
the giver of help through all the land.
13 It was you who divided the sea by your might,
who shattered the heads of the monsters in the sea.
14 It was you who crushed Leviathan's heads
and gave him as food to the untamed beasts.
15 It was you opened springs and torrents;
it was you who dried up ever-flowing rivers.
16
Yours is the day and yours is the night.
17 It was you who appointed the light and the sun;
it was you who fixed the bounds of the earth:
you who made both summer and winter.
18 Remember this, Lord, and see the enemy scoffing;
a senseless people insults your name.
19 Do not give Israel, your dove, to the hawk
nor forget the life of your poor ones for ever.
20 Remember your covenant; every cave in the land
is a place where violence makes its home.
21 Do not let the oppressed return disappointed;
let the poor and the needy bless your name.
22 Arise, O God, and defend your cause!
Remember how the senseless revile you all the day.
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the daily increasing uproar of your foes.