Monday Merton 6.17.13

Today’s Monday Merton comes from chapter 10, “Sincerity,” of No Man Is An Island. What Merton means by sincerity is being a person who lives and speaks in a way that is truthful. He opens his chapter with a single sentence that blows my mind: “We make ourselves real by telling the truth” (188). There are so many dimensions to which that is true. In a lot of ways, that is the central problem that Christianity resolves. Jesus makes it possible to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). When we live in the world of masks in which we hide our inadequacies and embarrassments from each other, there’s nothing real to any of it. Even our smiles have more to do with making sure that we’re fitting in with other people than expressing genuine contentment.

Monday Merton 6.10.13

For this week’s Monday Merton, I am drawing from chapters 8 and 9 of No Man Is An Island.

Monday Merton 6.3.13

These Monday Merton quotes are taken from chapter 7, “Being and Doing,” of No Man Is An Island.

Monday Merton 5.27.13

I’m pre-loading my Monday Mertons for the next two weeks in my insomnia before leaving on a trip to the Dominican Republic. So I don’t have enough mental energy to analyze the quotes I’m going to share, but they’re gems nonetheless. This first set of quotes is from chapter 6, “Asceticism and Sacrifice,” in No Man Is An Island.

Monday Merton 5.20.13

The chapter for Monday Merton this week is very apropos. We just started a blogger’s collective called the despised ones, based on 1 Corinthians 1:28, “He has chosen the despised ones and those who are not to bring to nothing the things that are.” So here is what Thomas Merton has to say in “The Word of the Cross,” chapter 5 of his No Man Is An Island.

Monday Merton 5.13.2013

Today’s Monday Merton is a chapter in Thomas Merton’s No Man Is An Island that talks about “pure intention,” which is the term Merton uses for coming to a place where our will is synchronized with God’s will.

Monday Merton 5.6.13

I’m pretty exhausted from having had two retreats back to back this weekend and preparing to head to my third, so it’s going to be a week in which I quote Merton without commentary. All of these quotes are from No Man Is An Island.

Monday Merton 4.22.2013

I overslept this morning and I need to get out to my lake to walk and pray so today I’m just going to share some quotes from Thomas Merton without my own commentary. I am drawing again from his book No Man is An Island. By the way, apologies for the non-gender inclusive language. I guess because Merton was surrounded by men all the time in a monastery, he can’t imagine ever writing the word “she” in a book. It’s annoying.