Thinking Deeper with Thomas Merton - Ep. 2

Thomas Merton and The Dalai Lama pictured at Dharamsala, India in November of 1968.

Why can we not be content with the secret gift of the happiness that God offers us, without consulting the rest of the world? Why do we insist, rather, on a happiness that is approved by the magazines and TV? Perhaps because we do not believe in a happiness that is given to us for nothing. We do not think we can be happy with a happiness that has no price tag on it.

– Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander #84, published in 1966 

Over the years I’ve come to understand a little better how joy differs from happiness. It is something that is not a causal effect of experience something in the moment. Being happy can often feel like that – a fleeting moment that I so anxiously want to hold on to and be in that moment forever because I don’t know when next I would feel that euphoric emotion again. Yet the joy which comes from the Lord is a much more stable rather than an erratic moment. It comes from a space within me which I am able to retreat to, where love, peace and joy abound greatly because I am able to just be in God’s presence without worrying about external factors. The only reason why I can do this because I know that He is constant and timeless whereas whatever I am experiencing or facing at that moment in my life, that is just temporary and will one day pass away.

What Thomas Merton wrote back in 1966 is still valid till this day. Society has shaped our worldview so much that we believe love and happiness is something we must fight for and earn for ourselves, that nothing comes free. But the very fact that Jesus died for us is the biggest action of selfless love and free gift to us to experience life to its fullest. When we are able to see and reach the conclusion that the sweetest reward at the end of our life is eternity with God in endless bliss, our worldview and priorities changes. God is all we need and we can be happy as long as we are near to Him, in this temporary life on Earth and when we are reunited with Him at death.

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