If I did not believe in God I think I would be bound in conscience to become an anarchist. Yet, if I did not believe in God, I wonder if I could have the consolation of being bound in conscience to do anything.
Conscience is the soul of freedom, it eyes, its energy, its life. Without conscience, freedom never knows what to do with itself. And a rational being who does not know what to do with [their self] finds the tedium of life unbearable. [They are] literally bored to death.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”
I’ve been stuck Trying to find my voice To hear it in the clamor of the others Droning on about scandalous politics Whining about the downfall of society What people stoop to to pick up a buck A pile of which will make them free Free from something I don’t know what Not free from puzzling out How to spend the next minute
I’ve been stuck not wanting to say all that Or just that Because there is more to say I know there is If I can just listen for that voice Still and small Telling me to speak and act Freely and truly
We too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make…
Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves.
Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like.
On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable almost all the time.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”
I don’t know enough about brain chemistry to say anything much about it. But I understand that we can easily become like trapped rats poking whatever button we can find that results in a little dopamine poof. And then another. And then another, bigger poof. Each poof producing in our brains what we associate with pleasure. Followed by a lack of pleasure. Followed by looking for that button again. And, can we poke it a little harder and get a little bigger poof this time?
I have been that trapped rat. I have family members who were those trapped rats who I hope and pray found mercy and relief when they left the earth that had become to them a maze with no way out and all the buttons no longer sufficient.
We have thriving industries that depend on our false selves making the choices for us. Until we no longer have any power to choose anything but what we have become addicted to, perfect consumers.
God in heaven, be merciful to us, guide us to our true selves, to choices that don’t go poof.
Jesus, you came that we might have joy, abundantly, not dependent on dopamine and the pleasure pulses it gives. Inclusive of pleasure, yes; thank you. Requiring pleasure, no; thank you. Joy no one can take from us, not ‘like the world gives’. Thank you.
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.
Selfishness is doomed to frustration, centered as it is upon a lie.
To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”
This from Thomas Merton brings to mind words of Jesus:
If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.
Matthew 10:39, Peterson, Eugene H.. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language . The Navigators. Kindle Edition.
You might be more familiar with the words this way:
Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Location 75096). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
I don’t even know where to start. Which strand of thoughts, of the many, do I pick up and try to pull from the knotted mess that’s there?
One is about the rampant corruption in politics in our country and around the world…bending all things to the will of powerful people.
Another is about the kind of economics that steals from the poor and gives to the already-wealthy…selfishness.
Another is about the stockpiling of weaponry, both nationally and individually…first concern is to look after yourself.
Another is about speech and how we choose to use it…exclusively for ourselves.
Each of these threads gets and deserves plenty of air time in our public discourse.
But I’m holding back the temptation to enter the fray.
Because maybe I need to start, to remember as best I can always to start, with the thread of my inner life.
The tragic and tragically flawed little god in there who rants and raves at even the smallest inconvenience daring to cross it’s path.
That spews all the correct answers to all the important questions and deserves accolades commensurate with this great wisdom, greater even than Solomon’s.
That can’t seem to go a day without chocolate of just the right darkness or coffee made from just the right bean brewed in just the right way.
Maybe that is the thread I should start with.
Maybe that little tyrant needs to be reminded about the quotes from Merton and Matthew first.
Before it commences tying all the other threads together into a tangle made in it’s own image.
I consider that the spiritual life is the life of [one’s] real self, the life of that interior self whose flame is so often allowed to be smothered under the ashes of anxiety and futile concern.
To find “ourselves” then is to find not only our poor, limited, perplexed souls, but to find the power of God that raised Christ from the dead and “built us together in Him unto a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22).
becoming flame 