The Merton Prayer – The Merton Prayer

The Clergy are Cowards!

I watched a church historian interviewed recently who was asked, “Why is the American church not flourishing?” His answer was this: “The clergy are the problem.” Today we get to the third of Alistair Begg’s threefold meme – “The Clergy are Cowards.” Seriously? Some of you may be saying right now, “Steven, that’s not nice to say about ministers, pastors, and priests!” As you likely know already, I am not nearly as concerned with being nice, as I am with being honest!

Have you ever thought of your clergy as a coward? The dictionary definition of coward is this: “One who shows disgraceful fear or timidity” [Webster’s Dictionary]. The same dictionary gives “chicken” as the first synonym of coward. Interesting, isn’t it, that the word “disgraceful” is used? Another quote from Alexis de Tocqueville fits here: “Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.” (Democracy in America) The Clergy are Cowards! is indeed “disgraceful” and needs to be eradicated!

Here’s some examples of The Clergy are Cowards! which I have encountered over my years in the church. A pastor told his congregation “the issues of evil facing our country all have to stay outside this church building! In here we only preach Christ!” He was a chicken clergy worried ONLY about members leaving if he preached biblical orthodoxy which would mean lower offerings, which could put his salary and pension in jeopardy!

Or this: when a mainline denomination voted to affirm a woman’s right to “unrestricted abortion” one of their pastors never even informed their own leaders that their denomination had so voted! Fear leads a chicken clergy to keep their mouth shut!

How about this: A church group was on a field trip visiting sacred sites in Europe when a stranger approached the pastor who was leading the group with this question which was heard by the entire group, “Do I have to be baptized to join your group?” The pastor immediately turned the group in a different direction without responding to the questioner. Why not speak to this person with biblical truths? Fear! I could likely muster 1,000 other examples – The Clergy are Cowards!

Three biblical verses show “cowardly clergy” are not at all in step with the Lord:

“Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10)
“In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11)
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7)

The Greek word for “fear” is phobos from which we get phobia. Have our American clergy developed phobias which keep them from preaching the truth, teaching God’s and not man’s word, and upholding biblical orthodoxy every chance they get?

I ask again “why is the American church not flourishing?” We now have all three of Alistair Beggs answers, The Culture is Collapsing, The Church is Confused, and The Clergy are Cowards! Please Lord let each reading these words look for ways to be the antidote to these problems the Body of Christ is facing in America!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Keep Moving!

One of my favorite actors is Dick Van Dyke. I can use the verb “is” since he will turn 99 years old this coming December. At age 95 he was asked by an interviewer “What is your secret to such a long and healthy life?” to which he replied with his world-famous smile, “Keep Moving.”

Indeed, those two words come to me often now when I so easily can talk myself out of exercising. His career is amazing, and I encourage you to check him out on Wikipedia because you just won’t believe all he has done and continues to do! He read his memoir on Audible books in 2011 at age 86!

Something he said in his memoir has stuck with me: “Ok, we need three things in life: something to do; someone to love; and something to hope for!” I absolutely love that mandate for purpose! I also am confident that those three “things in life” correspond truly with the life of a Christian. Could this be any easier?

“Something to do” are the marching orders which Jesus gave the disciples just before he ascended back to heaven. His words are for us over 2,000 years later: go, teach, baptize! Spread his gospel so that all the world will know God and turn from evil. Keep Moving gets us off the couch, using our gifts and knowledge to teach, and being thrilled when a new believer is baptized into the newness of the Christian life.

“Someone to love” points us to our relationship with the Lord, every day of our life! If we stop and really think about who the Lord is, there is only and always love in our heart. God first loved us, we don’t even have to think about it: we have someone to love, every minute of every hour of every day! And the true joy about love is that God has given us human beings whom we get to love here on hearth! Keep Moving to that person God has called us to love! And then find another! And another!

“Something to hope for” is surely the easiest of VanDyke’s threefold life purpose for we Christians. Our hope is focused on spending eternity with the God who created the universe and flung the stars into the sky! We cannot begin to really understand what eternity will be like, but knowing it is there for us gives us undying hope! Keep Moving in hope which motivates us every single day!

But what if we Keep Moving and we sometimes, somehow, lose our way? That’s when the powerful words of The Merton Prayer keep us on track, focused on God and not ourselves. “Therefore, I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” Maybe the words of my favorite “Mary Poppins” actor just might help me stay focused, get up off the couch, and Keep Moving!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know! I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

I Chose Forgiveness and It Kept Me Alive!

Have you heard the “Wild Bill” story from the German concentration camps in WW2? This was new to me, and it blew my “theological socks” right off! I heard this story from a very credible source, Dr. Robert Sears, S.J., who has been my and my wife Miran’s spiritual director for over 20 years, and he claims it is absolutely true.

A Polish family of five were imprisoned by the Nazis in a concentration camp. The father evidently appeared healthy and so the Nazis pulled him aside for work detail while he had to stand and watch all four of his beloved family members shot to death and dumped into a mass grave!

Sit with that horrific scene for a moment and see how your spirit is dealing with it.

When the American troops liberated all Nazi concentration camps in 1945, they spent weeks working in each camp. At first the emaciated prisoners were scared of these “new soldiers” whose language they did not recognize and whose uniforms were different than their captors. If you have never seen any archival footage of the liberation work you might want to google it, the historical footage abounds on the internet and is easy to find. Here is just one link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyGQGEgTkLI

Back to “Wild Bill” who got this nickname from the American soldiers since he had a mustache and looked like Wild Bill Hickok, the famous American folk hero who lived from 1837-1876 and who had a very distinctive mustache. Also, his Polish name had five vowels and was unpronounceable by the Americans. Wild Bill spoke several languages, including English, so when he was asked if he was okay with being called “Wild Bill” instead of his real name, he agreed.

Wild Bill worked tirelessly with the American soldiers to help the sick and dying receive care with dignity, often putting in 16-hour days. Unlike his fellow prisoners he was not emaciated. He stood strong and looked as healthy as the American soldiers who quickly questioned him, “Sir, how is it that you are so healthy, and your fellow prisoners are skeletons near death?” His answer grabs my heart.

He said that after his entire family was killed, he had a choice. He could forgive or he could hate and seek revenge. He said repeatedly to any soldiers who asked him how he was so healthy, I Chose Forgiveness and It Kept Me Alive! He had endured the exact same starvation diet as others, yet he did not deteriorate into a weak skeleton. I imagine this conversation with Wild Bill:

Me: Why did you choose forgiveness sir?

He: Because anger and hate would eat me up inside, and because God loves all human beings, so how can I not love everyone?

Me: How are you so healthy when you had a starvation diet for six years?

He: A miracle, is the only way I can answer that question.

Me: Did you ever want to just give up and die?

He: Never. If I did that, then the Nazis have triumphed over me.

Me: What message do you have for us in 2024 sir?

He: Love everyone and forgive quickly, lest it eat you alive!

So, there you have it! Wild Bill’s story totally confirms what Victor Frankel said in “Man’s Search for Meaning” [Beacon Press, 2006] and which I referred to on page 74 in “The Merton Prayer: An Exercise in Authenticity” [ACTA Press, 2022]. The prisoners who asked, “why has God allowed this to happen to me” often did not survive, whereas those who asked, “what does God wish for me to learn in this awful situation” more often did survive.

So, what will it be for me and for you? Forgiveness or vengeance? May this day mark my constant connection with Wild Bill’s I Chose Forgiveness and It Kept Me Alive!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://www.themertonprayer.com/

Then We Fly Away

A birthday is always a time for celebration, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. When I was in my 30’s, my birthday was usually celebrated by finding a 10-K race to enter and run, even if there was snow on the ground (February 21^st in Chicago, don’t you know)!! Wow, those days are so long gone. (And all of that running on concrete is what my ortho docs said led to my left knee replacement!)

Many of the biblical characters lived well into their 100’s with some like Noah living to the ripe old age of 950!! (Genesis 9:29), while others like Abraham were just a kid when he died at 175 years of age (Genesis 25:7). Seriously, God? If someone lived to be 175 today it would be plastered all over world newspapers! Did you know that we actually are told in the bible that our lifespan blessed by God is somewhere between 70-80! Listen to this Psalm which is called “A Prayer of Moses” – “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; and soon they disappear, and Then We Fly Away.” (Psalm 90:10, NLT).

God has blessed me with seven years of life beyond my 2017 cancer scare, surgery, and radiation. “Pain and trouble” – most of us can testify to that in our lives. I am sure readers of this blog and my book, The Merton Prayer, will not be surprised to hear me say that “my miracle kidney stone” saved my life. If I had passed that stone in three days in December 2016, which is the normal time span, instead of taking 8 weeks to pass it, I would not be around now. My cancer was so aggressive that my doctor told me after my 2/13/2017 surgery that if my cancer had not been caught due to that stubborn kidney stone, I had ONLY 3-6 months to live!

The Merton prayer has been with me every day of my life for decades and it took away the fear which came when I first heard my aggressive diagnosis and that I should have surgery very soon. You will not be surprised that I put off the surgery for three weeks so I could go to Kentucky and attend a UK basketball game with my brother and sister! Priorities must prevail, right?

So, as I think more and more about life in heaven with God, seeing my mother and father, the four grandparents whom I never met, my Brother-in-Law Dean, and many others, it is sort of a blessing to encounter Psalm 90:10 and to start thinking about “Then We Fly Away”. I look at birds in the air differently now post-Psalm 90. And when I hear that one sentence in The Merton Prayer – “I have no idea where I am going” – now I hear it differently! I do indeed know where I am ultimately going, maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point. And I now am filled with joy by these words – Then We Fly Away!!!

How does this grab you? Can I get a witness?

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you found The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://www.themertonprayer.com

Silent Retreats, Drunk Accountants, and Brilliant Sunlight

As a native Kentuckian, I had a very strange early awareness of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton’s home for 27 years as a Trappist Monk. Gethsemani is about seventy-five miles west from my childhood home in Lexington. My father, Gayle Denny, was president of Transylvania Printing Company, an office-supply company located in downtown Lexington. The company’s accountant was an Irish Catholic who had a serious drinking problem.

My father would regularly send his accountant to the Abbey of Gethsemani for a “retreat,” which really meant a time for him to sober up and get back on the wagon. After a few days at the Abbey guesthouse, the accountant would return to work in good shape and thank my father profusely for his generous gift of time at the Abbey. He would bring my father gifts from the monks– some cheese, which I loved, and (ironic gift from an alcoholic) the monks’ famous bourbon-laced fruit cake, which I hated. The drunk accountant story was on my mind the first time I stepped foot onto the abbey grounds in 2004.

I guess I expected to see a bunch of alcoholic accountants wandering around, but instead I saw monks and serious-minded fellow Christians seeking respite and transformation. I had signed up for a week-long silent retreat at Gethsemani and was very excited to enter the chapel for the first time. When I sat down alone in the balcony, the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows, I felt the tug of the Holy Spirit saying, “Steven, you are in a really really really good place — breathe it in and come close to me.” [The Merton Prayer: An Exercise in Authenticity, pp. 152-154]

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