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Thoughts In Solitude

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This slender book is one of Merton's best. It contains several brief, luminous, sound, quiet, humble essays and observations gleaned from the labours, prayers, and extensive reading of this century's most prominent and perhaps most mercurial Trappist monk.

The tone is sedate. It is loyal to the ecclesia, and contains the unmistakable Merton note: the apologia for solitude as the mother of contemplation, prayer, wisdom, and holy hope. Confident without being preachy, serene without being quietistic or dull, not at all contaminated with the ephemera of politics or with complaints against the rigours of his chosen life, THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE is an excellent place for the new Merton explorer to begin, and a very good place for the veteran spiritual reader to return from time to time: each essay (or prayer) scarcely more than a few paragraphs, sometimes only one paragraph, is a kind of haven from the tumult of the world that can be frequently "too much with us."

Merton cautions against, and is wise to caution against, a misanthropy or a cowardice that calls itself religious solitude, because we can come to know, and do come to know God through our neighbours, as uncomely and annoying as some of them are at times (my words, not Merton's)!

He relates humility to listening, relates reading to prayer, and relates all things to God. The temptation to quote is overwhelming, but we will leave it to the readers to select their favourite passages. (Section X of part two is a lovely prayer, indeed.)

There are more than a few uncritical readers of Merton, "Mertonolaters" if you will, who praise his writing and his thinking in a fashion that would perhaps embarrass the monk himself. But this fine book, written before the many distractions of his later years, truly does merit the generous praise that it has received here and elsewhere. Is it the work of "a joyful Christian"? Joy, as we think of it, is maybe not the salient note; but rather, peace, freedom from confusion, and the true desire to love God on the part of an often restless spirit. Close relatives of joy, wouldn't you say?

Even though the contents of this book were written in 1953-54, the thoughts here are most appropriate today if one seeks to understand solitude as it relates to the spiritual life. Merton's thoughts about the desert, one's spiritual life, the sacraments, prayer, the Church, books and reading, and silence will make one evaluate one's relationship with God.The book is divided into two sections. One is the aspects of the spiritual life, and the other section is the love of solitude. One conclusion Meron makes in the first section is found in the following words: "The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living" (page 78).The spiritual life is a journey. In the second section, Merton has some challenging thoughts on solitude. It seems that every Christian desires solitude from time to time. Merton writes, "We put words between ourselves and things. Even God has become another conceptual unreality in a no-man's land of language that no longer serves as a means of communion with reality" (page 85).THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE is a brief book compared to many of Merton's other books, however, this is one of his best. It will make you think, and it will probably make you evaluate your Christian walk with God. As Merton writes, "Do not flee to solitude from the community. Find God first in the community,then He will lead you to solitude." This is a book worth reading.

To defend the spirit against what Merton calls "the murderous din of our materialism", we must learn to live in solitude. But true solitary life is not a withdrawal from society: on the contrary, it is the only way to become social in the fullest sense, because through solitude we come to comprehend God's profound love for us, so that we can love other men in imitation and reverence of Him. Of the many themes Merton emphasizes in explaining true solitude, gratitude and humility are perhaps the most important. To live in solitude is to be without attachment to material things, personal relationships, or even spiritual accomplishment. Therefore solitude is a life of utter poverty and humility: our entire lives are a gift to God. Through this act we discover that nothing is due us, and our lives become an ongoing prayer of gratitude for whatever gifts we receive. For the true solitary, actions are far more important than thoughts, because, as Merton points out, if our ideas are not reflected in our actions, we do not really think them. If we do not follow our true vocation our lives will be choked by internal conflict between what we are called to do and what we actually do. Or worse, we may avoid the problem by ignoring our spiritual condition. Merton's commentary is highly relevant to all who care about their spiritual condition, and all who seek God in the murderous din.

This is actually the first time I have FINISHED a Thomas Merton book- not to say I do not find him normally interesting- actually it's the opposite. When I had been reading Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation" a few years back, I was very confused. Confused in a good way- because it forced a lot of deep questions to arise within me. So much so that I never seemed to actually get anywhere with the reading.

But Thoughts in Solitude has a different flavor to it- do not get me wrong- it is still that extremely contemplative and philosophical Merton everyone loves. But it has a feeling about it that it's more- refined- or perhaps relaxed would be the word I am looking for. I think it is important to point out that I am actually a Zen Buddhist, but this sort of view on God that Merton has- is not to far askew from my own. Though I simply don't "make that word God" from the get go.

But all in all, Merton shows us one of his best works in this book. The words simply jump out at the reader, they are alive with the food so many of our spiritual lives stomachs are craving for. So order this book. When it arrives, kick off them shoes, put on that REGULAR coffee, maybe run some bathwater- and relax! You will absolutely enjoy this book. The type of book that could be written actually nowhere else but a monastery if you ask me. It has an, "This was meant to be private"- kind of feel to it. But that's just Merton at his best-I doubt there is any real intrusion on our, the reader's part. Anyway I hope you enjoy the book;)

Moved by this slim volume by Thomas Merton, I found "Thoughts in Solitude" to be worth a second read three years after the initial purchase and first reading. Call this an accidental second reading, and a good accident for I had not planned on revisiting the title. To my pleasure, the book is good if not better the second time around. For I was moved by the love this man holds for God, or held, since he is now many years dead. In this book, he lives, and he is as well as a man of God who sought God, but a writer who has the writer's gift of telling us some of the journey of getting closer to God. Or as he might say, God allowing someone to get closer to Him. That is good news.

Readable, and certainly quick going but the kind of book one goes through "easily," it is a book that allows for reflection. I wondered about humility, and I wondered how in the world could something like humility be available to a layman, especially one who has neither the desire for nor the means of holding and having solitude as did Thomas Merton.

I think Thomas Merton held solitude, as one embraces something, as one would embrace God. As a man or woman comes to Christ. Intangible as that may sound, the writer brings the reader to come with him on the inner journey and the journey of desire to be with God in quiet and solitude. Not alone, but in a solitude that is like a solidarity with the Almighty. This is the having solitude that I mention. Or so I understand it by the book.

But I did not come to the book, after reading a while, to admire Thomas Merton. Of course, I do. I did not come to the book to get secrets about God, but Thomas Merton says there are secrets available to those who read the scriptures. There is both the telling and the untelling of a relationship with God that explains to the reader, through inference and through his reflections, that solitude brings people to mystery. I want to believe that there is mystery in the relationship with Christ, that in God we find and feel things (called religious experience) that are not available to us other ways. Thomas Merton writes of religious experience in this book, and he does it very well.

I'm sure you have heard that this is the second of his books that critics cite as one of his two best. The other is, "The Seven Story Mountain." I read that book as the first of his books I read. I am glad I did. Here I stop a moment to tell you I am not doing justice to his writing, for in both books he is a spiritual master. Here he writes of the spiritual life, and for me it is the beginnings of thought on considering spiritual life:

"Spiritual life is not mental life. It is not thought alone. Nor is it, of course, a life of sensation, a life of feeling--'feeling" and experiencing the things of the spirit, and the things of God.

Nor does the spiritual life exclude thought and feeling. It needs both."

I like how he explains this explanation, saying, "Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith."

The end of the book is like a prayer, and the entire book has a prayer quality to it. The chapters are short. They are like arrows of writing. There is a warmth to the writing, and an inviting quality is evident because Thomas Merton wants his reader to know what it is to love God, and to recognize this is what a man or woman may have in his or her lifetime.

As I come to the end of this review, it is important to remark that a reader can take his affection, even his passionate humility tempered in a life of solitude, and find ways of understanding and coming closer to God. I grant his is a holy life, an easy thing to say, and I want to close with this quote:

"The solitary life is a life in which we cast our care upon the Lord and delight only in the help that comes from Him. Whatever He does is our joy. We reproduce His goodness in us by our gratitude. (Or--our gratitude is the reflection of His mercy. It is what makes us like Him.)

Peter Menkin, Epiphany

This book has much spiritual insight in that it is balanced. It strikes a balance between reality and the limitations of humanity and the struggle for divine relationship. It challenges one to go higher while accepting oneself right where that person may be, since God accepts one right where they are.

The title of this book derives from 1953/54 when Merton was able to enjoy special opportunities for solitude and meditation; the contents of this book are thoughts on the contemplative life and fundamental intuitions that seemed, at that time, to have importance. As such, the chapters do not necessarily relate to one another and are, as the title suggests, a collection of thoughts while in solitude. "It is quite likely that intuitions which seem to be most vital to the writer will not have much importance for others, who do not have the same kind of vocation." For the writer, these reflections on man's solitude before God and man's dialogue with God in silence are essential to his monastic way of life. It is a counterbalance to totalitarianism and the murderous din of materialism that must not be allowed to silence the voices of the Christian Saints, Oriental sages like Lao-Tse or the Zen Masters or Thoreau, Martin Buber or Max Picard. "What is said here about solitude is not just a recipe for hermits. It has a bearing on the whole future of man and of his world and especially, of course, on the future of his religion." Part I is composed of 19 thoughts on aspects of the spiritual life; part II of 18 thoughts on the love of solitude

The desert, supremely valuable to God because it has no value to men, is the logical dwelling place for the solitary with nothing between himself and his Creator. But as man has moved into the desert for testing nuclear weapons or building casinos, the desert moves elsewhere. The new desert is despair.

All temperaments can serve as material for ruin or for salvation; if we make our temperament serve us we can do better than another who serves his temperament. The things we love tell what we are. A man who sins but does not love his sin is not a sinner in the full sense of the word. Even if we are temperamentally inclined to anger, we are still free not to be angry. We are free to desire either good or evil. Too many ascetics fail to become saints because their rules and ascetic practices have merely deadened humanity instead of setting it free to develop richly, in all its capacities.

Jesus had a clear vision of God but experienced our human emotions of affection, pity, sorrow, happiness, pleasure, grief, indignation, wonder, weariness, anxiety, fear, consolation and peace. If we are without human feelings we cannot love God as we are meant to love Him - as men.

Our five senses are chilled by inordinate pleasure. Penance cleans the senses and gives them back their vitality. Lack of self-denial and self discipline is the cause of mediocrity of much devotional art, much pious writing, many sentimental prayers and many religious lives. "Some men turn away from all this cheap emotion with a kind of heroic despair, and seek God in a desert where the emotions can find nothing to sustain them. But this too can be an error. For if our emotions really die in the desert, our humanity dies with them. We must return from the desert like Jesus or St. John with our capacity for feeling expanded and deepened, strengthened against appeals of falsity, warned against temptation, great, noble, pure."

No amount of technological progress will cure the hatred that eats away the vitals of materialistic society like a spiritual cancer. The only cure is spiritual.

A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thoughts for life, ideas for action. Our destiny is to live out what we think. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into reality.

Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.

Laziness and cowardice are two of the greatest enemies of the spiritual life and they are most dangerous when masked as discretion. The problem is that discretion is one of the most important virtues.

"Why should I want to be rich, when you were poor? Why should I desire to be famous and powerful in the eyes of men, when the sons of those who exalted the false prophets and stoned the True rejected You and nailed You to the Cross? Why should I cherish in my heart a hope that devours me - the hope for perfect happiness in this life - when such hope, doomed to frustration, is nothing but despair?"

Thomas Merton has great wisdom to pass on to us if we are ready to receive it.

Thoughts in Solitude, by Thomas Merton, is a beautiful little book with musings and insights which come out of his life as a contemplative monk. One thing I love about Merton - and this book - is that it breathes solitude - slow, reflective, thoughtful, quiet solitude. Merton knows what we ALL should know - that Reality can only be ascertained from a silence and stillness of being. This Reality - the reality of God and of one's Self - is the groundwork for proper action or speech in the world. Far from fleeing one's duties, one only discovers them properly if one has incorporated this into one's life. He speaks of the things that are most useful precisely because they are useless to man, the silence that penetrates the very bones of a monk, the discovery of Self and of God by leaving self and over-externality. One finds one's Self by losing one's self, one speaks with meaning by being silent, one finds God by renouncing gods. The spiritual life IS a contradiction from a worldly standpoint. He who is last shall be first, he who is most mature shall become like a child, he who has nothing shall have everything. The discovery of God and one's Self is a stripping away - not an accumulation, a receptivity, not an overwhelming. Highly recommended.

Thomas Merton writes words that, in their simplicity and honesty and clarity, point humanity to a more holistic idea of what it means to be spiritual. As Merton says, "The spiritual life is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived." By focusing on the power we can gain from a deeper understanding of poverty, humility, solitude, prayer, Scripture, and love, Merton shows us that it is not enough to live "for God" or "with God," but "in God alone," and in Him we find ourselves and our inalienable spirituality. We can discover that to love God with a human heart is enough, for that is what Jesus did and died for, that we may do the same: love God and our fellow man not as angels or demi-gods or as a pure intellect, but as the humans God made in His own image.

Ever get that feeling that you're just going through the motions of being a Christian. You got your doctrines right. You got the prayer lists and plenty of ministry opportunities yet....... Am I part of a club? Is being a Christian like an occupation? Are there expectations placed on me by other Christians on what a Chirstian should do, think, feel?
Merton goes against the grain. He brings simpliciy back to one's thoughts. Do I have a relationship with God like I have with others? Do I long to talk to HIm, to be with HIm? to listen? Is God my Father and Friend and "Husband" or is He the cosmic Boy Scout passing out prayer badges, bible reading badges? How do people like me encounter Jesus? Merton compares Christ to lightning:" There are many who have sought Him and not found Him. To catch Him is as easy as catching lightning. And like lightning, He strikes where He pleases. There is no technique for finding Him. We find Him by His will."
For us folks in the 8-5 workplace, busy as bees,How can I be alone with Jesus? Merton replies;" As soon as I am fully disposd to be alone with God, I am alone with God no matter where I may be- in the country, the monastery, the woods, the city. The Lightning flashes, and God flashes in the depths of my soul. Although I am a traveler in time, I have opened my eyes, for a moment, in eternity.
I found some solace in the fact that though I am seeking God, Merton reminds me that God reveals HImself according to HIs plan and timing: "As long as I am content to know that He is infinitely greater than I, and that I cannot know Him unless He shows Himself to me, I will have peace.... You do not wait for me to become great before You will be with me and hear me and answer me, ...if I were not a mere man, a mere human being capable of all mistakes and of all evil, I would not be capable of being Your son."" Also, in my quest for solitude with Jesus, Merton reminds me: "Gratitude is the heart of the solitary life"
Finally, as I continually strive and yet fail to get closer to Him ,as I continually disobey with my wayward thoughts Merton adds these words of comfort: "It is necessary that I be human and remain human in order that the Cross of Christ be not made void. Jesus died not for the angels but for men."