merton new seeds

Questions to Guide Your Reading

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, "Everything That Is, Is Holy"

1. According to Thomas Merton, "There is no evil in anything created by God, nor can anything of His become an obstacle to our union with Him." Sounds nice. But note that there is or at least can be an obstacle. Where is this obstacle?

2. According to Merton, "Each particular being, in its individuality, its concrete nature and entity, with all its own characteristics and its private qualities and its own inviolable identity, gives glory to God by being precisely what He wants it to be here and now, in the circumstances ordained for it by His Love and His infinite Art." Again, sounds nice. But note that on the very next page, he points to a big problem. Yes, "it is true to say that for me sanctity consists in being myself and for you sanctity consists in being your self ...." What is the problem?

3. According to Merton, our vocation is not simply to be (like the flowers, leaves, lakes, and hills that he had praised on the previous page). What is our vocation? Why is this vocation (or "calling") "a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears"? Why do tend to "evade this responsibility by playing with masks"? Compare this with what Walker Percy has to say about the contemporary self in Lost in the Cosmos.

4. Note that the title of Merton's book is New Seeds of Contemplation. On p. 33 of that book, he says something about "seeds." What, according to Merton, are "the seeds that are planted in my liberty at every moment"? What does it mean to refuse them? What does it mean not to accept them?

5. According to Merton, what does it mean to say "I was born in sin"? Later on (on p. 34), Merton talks about "what is called a life of sin." What, according to Merton, makes for "a life of sin"?

6. According to Merton, where is the secret of our identity hidden? Ultimately, what is the "only way that I can be myself"? What is it, therefore, "on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend"?

7. In this section, Merton has said a lot of sweet-sounding things, but at the end, he sounds an important warning. "But although this looks simple," he says, "it is in reality immensely difficult." Why? If no one can every do this alone, nor can all the man and all the created things in the universe help him in this work, how can we accomplish our vocation of becoming ourselves -- of becoming who who are truly mean to be?