1. I think that Merton believes meditation is something that comes with hardship in prayer and waiting for the time of grace. He describes it also as many times , "a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance..." I think that Merton is describing meditation as seeing God and letting him permeate in our attitude.
2. Merton describes obstacles that come up in our spiritual life. These obstacles are resisting God, lack of confidence, and letting our imaginations run wild. He talks bout the help of the spiritual director who can guide us in prayer and sense any wrong- headed efforts. He proposes acceptance and humility as a solution to the problem of a wandering mind.
3. Merton's words on a wandering mind are very helpful to me. I find myself often with a wandering mind, and cannot keep focus when praying. It takes a long time for me to settle down, and actually be able to direct my attention on prayer. My question for Merton would be are we really ever only going to be beginners at the spiritual life. Obviously there are some people that are leading a more mature spiritual life, but are we all still just beginners?
Thank you, Jonny. Good thinking in #3 (which you also raised in class). The matter of the mind's lack of attention is something that I think our generations are going to struggle through a great deal more than many others before it. We have so many more distractions, but there are ways in which we can take greater control over the distractions, of course. This, too, is part of our personal growth.
ReplyDeleteAs to the first response, how would the "descent" quote lead you to see meditation as "seeing God and letting him permeate our attitude"? Maybe flesh that out a bit...