It was on this day in 1968 that the American Cistercian monk Thomas Merton, who had been attending an interfaith monastic conference in Bankok, Thailand, stepped out of his bath and apparently reached and touched an electric fan, was shocked and suffered a fatal heart attack. By coincidence it was the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance into Gethsemane Abbey not far outside of Louisville, Kentucky.
The author of the best selling spiritual memoir Seven Storey Mountain, followed by many other books, the cloistered Merton had enthralled two generations of spiritual seekers. His influence would extend well beyond his church. Certainly he deeply influenced me.
In 2013 the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly was held in Louisville. For me it was something of a Merton pilgrimage. First, downtown there’s a marker, the only state sanctioned marker I’ve ever encountered that notes someone’s spiritual awakening, in my spirituality, kensho. Merton’s full account speaks to the moment that transformed his heart, and in its flowering influenced so many, including, again, me.
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.…This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: ‘Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.’ It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: …A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. They are not ‘they’ but my own self. There are no strangers! Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.”
He proceeded to live his life out of that moment.
An example for us all…
Later during that week in Louisville my colleague and friend Erik Wikstrom and I drove out to the monastery, where we laid flowers on Fr Merton’s grave.
He deserves to be remembered.
His life and the many blessings of that life deserves celebrating. I’m so glad to know those lovely people in the American Episcopal church observe today formally as a feast in his honor.
And, more, more gratitude for his teachings. Endless blessings…
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