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{"id":43,"date":"2011-06-02T02:03:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T02:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=43"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:05:03","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:05:03","slug":"martin-on-merton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/martin-on-merton\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin on Merton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In this video,<\/strong><\/a> Fr. Jim Martin sketches the life, and explains the appeal, of Trappist monk, peace activist and recruiting officer for the contemplative life Thomas Merton, also known as Fr. Louis, OCSO. Martin, who speaks with a biographer\u2019s knowledge, gives due space to Merton\u2019s intensity and combativeness, but finds him very approachable despite them both. I have to admit, those qualities have always scared me half to death. <\/p>\n

I remember some scenes from Seven-Storey Mountain where Merton sounds about as angry with the world as Holden Caulfield. In one, he\u2019s helping some Harlem ghetto kids put on a play about toffs. (P.G. Wodehouse didn\u2019t write it, but Merton compares it to Wodehouse\u2019s work.) The whole affair strikes him as grotesque. <\/p>\n

In another segment, Merton\u2019s watching a group of people looking at great paintings \u2014 I remembered this taking place in the Metropolitan Museum, but Fr. Jim assures us it happened at the 1939 World\u2019s Fair \u2014 and making banal comments. Merton doesn\u2019t actually use words like bourgeois<\/i> and philistine<\/i> to describe the art lovers; nor does he explicitly say he wants to bang their heads together. But, brother, it\u2019s all there between the lines.<\/p>\n

That kind of all-or-nothing approach \u2014 to life, to morality, to consciousness itself \u2014 is untenable for me. If there\u2019s one thing I have absolute faith in, it\u2019s my own mediocrity. If I\u2019m not allowed to settle, there\u2019s no point in getting out of bed. <\/p>\n

Come to think of it, most people who go for broke end up broken. Given a less understanding abbot \u2014 or given fewer talents to recommend him \u2014 Merton could have been booted from the community before being allowed to profess his final vows. Or, given less grace (insight, maturity, whatever), he might have burned himself out \u2014 possibly switched religions and started all over. Maybe that\u2019s the real miracle of Merton: not that he ever reached any place of perfection, but that he was able to push himself at full strength toward one for so long, with his very sanity hanging in the balance. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"