Comments on: Selfishness, Happiness and Recollection

By: Kent Eilers

Kent Eilers — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:55:36 +0000

Kyle, your comments on Merton remind me of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ reflections on Ignatius. Here is an excerpt from a piece called ‘Creation and Redemption’ (1881): ‘It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smitting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping scouring, everything gives God glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty. To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives him glory too. To lift up hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a sloppail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.’ He builds this on the foundation that simply in ‘being’ man can and does bring God glory, but that unlike the other creatures man can intend to bring God glory.

By: Kyle Strobel

Kyle Strobel — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:29:49 +0000

Thomas and Dustin, thank you for your thoughts.

Dustin, I think Merton would want to encourage excellence in work, just not for its own sake. Take preaching for example – anyone who has preached knows the temptation of “knocking one out of the park,” or waxing eloquent so that the congregation leaves in awe. I think Merton would turn our attention to God, leaving us to answer the question: What does it mean to preach for God’s sake alone?

I personally worry about a lot going on right now with work and mission. I think the emphasis is way too much on what we can accomplish, rather than what God has and what God will continue to accomplish. Merton wants to push us away from our ability and towards God’s, so that we don’t work for our own selfish beliefs and desires. We can all point to people who have been building their own kingdoms in the name of God, and, to some degree, that is probably true of all our work. Following Thomas’ comments, I think Barth is a good theologian to go for this. He is always concerned with pushing our thought back to God, and I think that is where we need to be.

I appreciate your thoughts, thanks for replying!

By: Thomas Price

Thomas Price — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:44:16 +0000

Enjoyed the reflections here. As theologians, we certainly feel the weight of altering loyalties. Karl Barth’s theological turning was often described by him in terms of the sheer joy of discovering for the first time the wonder of theology’s living Sache. However, a strong glance at his works during that period, and his own later, more sober, recollections, also talk of the utter despair his discovery had upon his ministerial and theological work. I love his late reflections on the ‘existentials’ of theological work in his Evangelical Theology. Barth notes that it is the living Subject matter of theology that places the theologian in the most serious state in regards to temptation. Barth here finds the troubling temptation of us theologians to entertain idols in place of the dismantling of true grace. However, he then calls theology the ‘happiest’ of sciences, because the manifest presence of God in Christ always has a way of recapturing us from our disloyalties and self-obsessions and leading us into his ever wonderous triune love. Hence he ends the lectures on love.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:18:33 +0000

Great post- very thoughtful combination of two pretty different thinkers. I was struck a bit by Merton’s thought that spiritual wisdom is meant to be detached from one’s work. A common thought in many circles today encourages excellence in whatever work one undergoes, as this testifies to God among others. What Merton might be saying here is to not treat the work or even the seeking of God’s excellence within work in an idolatrous sense, but it also seems to divorce a good chunk of actual life by rendering “works and days” shadows. Then again, this discussion shapeshifts depending on whether one loves or “feels called” in one’s work, or if work is pure drudgery…

Thanks for all you do on here!