Thomas Merton on ‘salvation’

Thomas Merton writing about salvation.

What every man looks for in life is his own salvation and the salvation of the [ones] he lives with. By salvation I mean first of all the full discovery of who he himself really is. Then I mean something of the fulfillment of his own God-given powers, in the love of others and of God. I mean also the discovery that he cannot find himself in himself alone, but that he must find himself in and through others.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

This is so different from what salvation meant in the Christian tradition I knew when I was young. The commonly heard phrase “are you saved?” comes to mind as a good example. That question could stand in for any of these, depending on the situation:

Are you going to heaven, or to hell?
Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?
Are you one of us, or one of them?
Are you safe for me to be around, or do you need to be saved first?

In this tradition, I was “saved” by age ten (if not before). I was one of them, safe.

But I wasn’t safe; I wasn’t one of them; I knew for sure that Jesus and heaven were primarily about doctrines I assented to and rules I lived by, but had little if anything to do with my heart. I had no clue what ‘joy’ was, the joy Jesus and Peter and John and Paul talked about. It was completely foreign to me.

Over time I had to admit to myself and others close to me that the Gospel seemed more like bad news to me than good. I didn’t want just fire insurance to save me at the very moment of my death; I wanted life, the life Jesus came to give us, and to live it every day and every moment of every day until my death and beyond. I didn’t know it then, but I wanted to “become all flame“.