Tag: Thomas Merton

Nor Do I Really Know Myself!

Authenticity.  Knowing myself. Lying to myself. One of the most powerful and shocking phrases in The Merton Prayer is this:  Nor Do I Really Know Myself.  When Merton published these incredibly vulnerable and authentic words in his 1958 book Thoughts in Solitude, bookstores did not have the shelves of “self-help” and “self-knowledge” books which they hold today!

“Knowing oneself” has become a very fertile cottage industry not at all limited to psychologists or mental health workers.  How could Merton have foreseen such a widespread conundrum looming in our society? How exactly does a person “really know myself”?  Every time I pray The Merton Prayer I pause and sometimes come to a full stop at this phrase.  Nor Do I Really Know Myself!  I truly want to know myself. But then again maybe I do NOT want to “really” know myself.

True self-knowledge always leads to an encounter with the God in whose image I am created; an encounter with the God who “knew me” in my mother’s womb per Jeremiah 1:5. But that omnipotent God did far more than that while I was in my mother’s womb—listen to what He told the prophet and what He wants each of us to hear:  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” [Jeremiah 1:5 NIV]

Seriously God?  Did you “appoint” me as a pastor for 10 years, a Bible College Instructor of Greek for 4 years, a hospital ombudsman for 6 years, and a plaintiff’s trial attorney for 38 years (and counting!)?  I look backwards, and I honestly can say “Yes, thank you God for leading me each step of my life.”  As with Jeremiah, I too have had seasons of fear – did I really try a three-week medical malpractice case with six expert witnesses, without a little fear?

Jeremiah cried out to God:  “Alas, Sovereign Lord I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”  And how did God reply?  “Do not say, ‘I am too young’ – you must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” There it is! Regular readers of this blog saw this coming! The Merton Prayer in Jeremiah’s words – “I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone!”

If looking authentically at your true self causes fear and a little anxiety, well, maybe that is exactly what can lead to honest self-knowledge! I close with this quote from the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung –“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart.  Who looks outside – dreams.  Who looks inside –  awakens.” [Robin Sharma, The Monk who Sold his Ferari, HarperOne, 1998, p.40].  May the God of Jeremiah awaken each of us this week to true and authentic self-knowledge so that we no longer hiccup when we get to this phrase of The Merton Prayer – Nor Do I Really Know Myself!

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.]

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.]

The Culture is Collapsing!

Why is the Church not flourishing in this crazy world of American extremes?  Why do we see entire denominations taking very unChristian stands on controversial issues?  Why do we have clergy afraid to speak boldly like Jesus spoke?  I recently had the privilege of meeting the amazing pastor/author Alistair Begg – and I thanked him for his simple, yet powerful threefold mnemonic which answers the above questions:  The Culture is Collapsing, The Church is Confused, and The Clergy are Cowards.

Today’s blog looks at the first of Begg’s three answers, The Culture is Collapsing, and future blogs will tackle the other two.  One need only look at the last 25 years to see how incredibly different our culture is today!  The changes seem flowing in warp-speed!

We have grade schoolers being taught that they can choose which gender they want to be, parents who support such life-altering decisions, and a medical profession quick to step up with procedures and medications to help the child change into their desired gender!  Just today the national news dropped a bomb on us Americans with the announcement that a huge % of illegal migrants crossing our borders are criminals—true or false? We have two major political parties in our country which seem to literally hate the other, which leads to simply awful family gatherings around the Thanksgiving or Christmas tables!

Given the above it usually seems wisest, certainly easiest, just to ignore these topics.  I look at how Jesus dealt with his first century culture and I come away with hope that all may not be lost.  But clearly, as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a changing.”  The French historian/politician Alexis de Tocqueville had great insights into American Christianity – listen to this from the 1850s:

In the United States … almost all Americans believe in or at least respect Christianity, with the result that ‘everything is certain and fixed in the moral world’.

I doubt he would say the same for 21st century America where nothing seems “certain and fixed in the moral world.”  For over a decade I have belonged to, believed in, and ministered with, a conservative congregation which belongs to an uber-liberal denomination.  I was shocked to learn of the denomination’s official actions.

Here is one thing that Jesus said which, if we Christ-followers can engage with, then maybe, just maybe, the Church might be the antidote to The Culture is Collapsing!

He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. [John 8:7]  Jesus was teaching in the temple when some Jewish leaders of the day dragged a woman caught in the act of adultery before him, demanding that this sinful woman be stoned to death. When they heard the above words of Jesus, they all dropped their stones and walked away. And isn’t it interesting, and instructive, that John notes the older, more mature, Jewish leaders were the first to leave! Then we hear Jesus tell the woman, “Go and sin no more”!  Simple, yet profound, and certainly a real antidote for The Culture is Collapsing!

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.]

Being, Not Just Doing!

My friend Jeff Wood, a scholar and fellow lover of all things Merton, shared with me an article which I really enjoyed:  “On The Road with Thomas Merton” by Jeremy Seifert (https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/). Seifert digs deeply into the life and words of Thomas Merton.

Jump with me today into a couple of Mertonian quotes!

“In order to live I have to die” is not an easy one to digest, until I recall how Christians are called to die to self and live to Christ.  Paul said in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (NASB1995).  I love how the Amplified Bible explains difficult biblical ideas like this one: “For to me, to live is Christ [He is my source of joy, my reason to live] and to die is gain [for I will be with Him in eternity].”

“Life is not so much about trying to do something, just trying to be.”  Being, Not Just Doing!  One of the joys of engaging in Contemplative Prayer is the realization that our lives are far too often focused on how much we get done.  My journaling practice of ending each day with a few moments to reflect on “where did I experience God today and where did I miss God today” is called The Examination of Conscience.  Each day is a gift from God, and taking time to “examine” whether I am too busy “doing” things that I have not spent a single moment focusing on “who I am and Whose I am.”

Is there a tension here which is built into our human psyches?  After all, we have to “do” things or we won’t be able to pay our bills, put food on the table, or put clothing on our children!  Surely Merton would not condone just “sitting around all day never doing anything, just thinking and praying”!

Do not forget that the Abbey of Gethsemani (where Merton lived) was inhabited by Trappist monks who prayed the daily liturgy of the hours but who also worked out in the fields, in the kitchen, and in the shop creating their amazing cheeses, fudge, and bourbon fruitcakes!  Their day – and our day – can be, and hopefully is, filled with a balance of both the introspective being and the need to be productive at something by doing.  I believe the key to successfully implementing this concept is the word “just” which hopefully brings a blessing of balance to you today and every day!

 Being, Not Just Doing! Is a challenge worth undertaking, wouldn’t you agree? I love getting “comments” from readers of my blogs, so please do not be shy! I never cease being amazed at how Merton seekers from all over the world are finding this blog site.  Blessings on you today as you contemplate Being, Not Just Doing!

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.]

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.]

God Knows!

I have a client named Gloria whose voice mail message always brightens my day: “This is the day the Lord has made, so let’s rejoice and be glad!”  Does God know what I am up against in this “day which he has made”?  Does God know when I try to please him in everything I do?  Does God know when I fail miserably in my effort to live a holy life?  Yes.  God Knows!

Yesterday I heard an amazing sermon by pastor Sun Kwak of the Christ Our Redeemer Church in Camarillo, California.  He opened up Exodus 2 and 3 in a way I had never heard before. Verses 23-25 describe how God’s chosen people “cried out,” “sighed,” and “groaned” in agony.  Three different Hebrew verbs, and in most English translations we see two of the “cry out” verbs but not three.

And then the most amazing words conclude chapter 2, and it is this comforting message which I focus on in today’s blog.  “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Issac, and with Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel – and God knew.”  (ESV).  Those last two words have grabbed my heart and won’t let go.  Simple.  Powerful.  Comforting.  God Knows!

Confession time!  So when I pray The Merton Prayer and earnestly say with Merton, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you,”  I always, seriously always, hear myself thinking, “Does God really know how and when I “desired to please God?” Does God know the details? I want God to know!  I am so tempted to spend time telling God the details so I can feel confident that he does indeed know my heart! 

No need for that.  God Knows! These two words bring immediate comfort to my soul and I sing with joy the fact that the Creator of the universe knows what goes on in my heart.  God Knows!

In the 7th verse of Exodus 3 we read, again from the ESV, “I know their sufferings.”  We can rest assured that no matter what our issue or problem or suffering may be, God Knows!  So, when I have a problem with a relative, God Knows!  When I have an ethical dilemma with one of my law firm clients, God Knows!  When I am facing a life-threatening illness, God Knows!

I hope that God Knows! brings comfort to your heart today.  No matter where you are in life, what problems you are facing, what issues are overwhelming you right now.  Take a deep breath and enjoy this message of comfort:  God Knows!

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://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.]

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 21st 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

[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.]