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jenny_islanderMy previous post in this series gave Foster's booklist for Chapter 1, a mini-library of core texts about spiritual disciplines.
I am beginning the first chapter that explores one discipline in depth: "The Discipline of Meditation." And here I begin to understand how this book, which distills the dozen-and-a-half books in that list and more besides, is so short.
I struggle to paraphrase this chapter. I can hardly abridge it. I very strongly urge you to find a copy and read it for yourself.
Here is how the chapter begins:
True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace--Thomas Merton
Again, Foster never quotes lightly.
Thomas Merton, who died in 1968, was a postsecondary English teacher on his way to a Ph.D. when his life took a turn. He became a well respected author and speaker. He said that the race riots in the U.S. (in which white mobs attacked African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Native Americans, and anybody else in their path for not being invisible and submissive) were wrong. He also said that the Vietnam War was wrong and spoke out against nuclear proliferation. He was a firm advocate of nonviolence and described himself as an anarchist. A Christian, he conversed often with people of other religions in an attempt to understand the full breadth of human experience. One of his colleagues said that he talked like a Marxist, which is a long-standing way of calling someone a danger to the American way of life. He was found dead in a room in Thailand, where he had been invited to a professional conference, with a short-circuited electric fan lying across his body and a very bloody wound in the back of his head. The cause of death was officially given as heart failure.
At the same time, starting from the same place, Thomas Merton was Brother Mary Louis of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Cistercians of the Strict Observance follow the old Western monastic rulebook very closely. They live simply, stay at home unless their abbot gives them permission to travel, own nothing, eat no red meat, raise as much of their own food as possible, pray, worship, look after guests, and work to support their community--Gethsemani produces egduf and a very popular yzoob fruitcake. Quiet time for meditation and study is very important; to avoid idle chitchat, they communicate only by a limited sign language for part of each day. It was within this framework built around spiritual disciplines that M. Louis began to write for publication. He also became a priest.
So this is the company we find ourselves in, at the beginning of Foster's list of spiritual disciplines. I think Foster quotes this author, out of all those he might have chosen, in support of his assertion that spiritual disciplines are for everyone in all walks of life. M. Louis lived to the end of his days as a monk bound to simplicity, prayer, obedience, study, fasting, service, worship, and contemplation (AKA meditation). Thomas Merton was a public figure. His busy life was sometimes a strain, but there was no contradiction.
That said, Foster goes on to say that--
In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied. Psychiatrist Carl Jung once remarked, "Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil."
Again I say that Foster wrote this when the lot of the average American was not as terrible. So to noise, hurry and crowds I add distraction, dread and despair. Despair, in particular, is the weapon of the Enemy. Despair whispers that nothing can be done, that you are all alone in the dark, that there is nothing left to do but await the final destruction. Despair can almost be comforting: you don't have to exert yourself, and possibly fail, if nothing can be done...
Foster begins with meditation as a way past "the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture." I say that it is also a way out of the trap of distraction, dread and despair. "[G]o down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation...we should without shame enroll as apprentices in the school of contemplative prayer."
My next post will deal with Foster's explanation of where Christians learned to meditate and what meditation is for.
I am beginning the first chapter that explores one discipline in depth: "The Discipline of Meditation." And here I begin to understand how this book, which distills the dozen-and-a-half books in that list and more besides, is so short.
I struggle to paraphrase this chapter. I can hardly abridge it. I very strongly urge you to find a copy and read it for yourself.
Here is how the chapter begins:
True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace--Thomas Merton
Again, Foster never quotes lightly.
Thomas Merton, who died in 1968, was a postsecondary English teacher on his way to a Ph.D. when his life took a turn. He became a well respected author and speaker. He said that the race riots in the U.S. (in which white mobs attacked African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Native Americans, and anybody else in their path for not being invisible and submissive) were wrong. He also said that the Vietnam War was wrong and spoke out against nuclear proliferation. He was a firm advocate of nonviolence and described himself as an anarchist. A Christian, he conversed often with people of other religions in an attempt to understand the full breadth of human experience. One of his colleagues said that he talked like a Marxist, which is a long-standing way of calling someone a danger to the American way of life. He was found dead in a room in Thailand, where he had been invited to a professional conference, with a short-circuited electric fan lying across his body and a very bloody wound in the back of his head. The cause of death was officially given as heart failure.
At the same time, starting from the same place, Thomas Merton was Brother Mary Louis of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Cistercians of the Strict Observance follow the old Western monastic rulebook very closely. They live simply, stay at home unless their abbot gives them permission to travel, own nothing, eat no red meat, raise as much of their own food as possible, pray, worship, look after guests, and work to support their community--Gethsemani produces egduf and a very popular yzoob fruitcake. Quiet time for meditation and study is very important; to avoid idle chitchat, they communicate only by a limited sign language for part of each day. It was within this framework built around spiritual disciplines that M. Louis began to write for publication. He also became a priest.
So this is the company we find ourselves in, at the beginning of Foster's list of spiritual disciplines. I think Foster quotes this author, out of all those he might have chosen, in support of his assertion that spiritual disciplines are for everyone in all walks of life. M. Louis lived to the end of his days as a monk bound to simplicity, prayer, obedience, study, fasting, service, worship, and contemplation (AKA meditation). Thomas Merton was a public figure. His busy life was sometimes a strain, but there was no contradiction.
That said, Foster goes on to say that--
In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied. Psychiatrist Carl Jung once remarked, "Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil."
Again I say that Foster wrote this when the lot of the average American was not as terrible. So to noise, hurry and crowds I add distraction, dread and despair. Despair, in particular, is the weapon of the Enemy. Despair whispers that nothing can be done, that you are all alone in the dark, that there is nothing left to do but await the final destruction. Despair can almost be comforting: you don't have to exert yourself, and possibly fail, if nothing can be done...
Foster begins with meditation as a way past "the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture." I say that it is also a way out of the trap of distraction, dread and despair. "[G]o down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation...we should without shame enroll as apprentices in the school of contemplative prayer."
My next post will deal with Foster's explanation of where Christians learned to meditate and what meditation is for.
