Thinking Deeper with Thomas Merton

A short introductory plague of Merton (1915 - 1968) at the Thomas Merton Center Foundation.

In our society, a society of business rooted in Puritanism, based on the pseudo-ethic of industriousness and thrift, to be rewarded by comfort, pleasure, and a good bank account, the myth of work is thought to justify an existence that is essentially meaningless and futile. There is, then, a great deal of busy-ness as people invent things to do when in fact there is very little to be done. Yet we are overt, whelmed with jobs, duties, tasks, assignments, “missions” of every kind. At every moment we are sent north, south, east, and west by the angels of business and art, poetry and politics, science and war, to the four corners of the universe to decide something, to sign something, to buy and sell.

We fly in all directions to sell ourselves, thus justifying the absolute nothingness of our lives. The more we seem to accomplish, the harder it becomes to really dissimulate our trifling, and the only thing that saves us is the common conspiracy not to advert to what is really going on.

–Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander #177, published in 1966

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During this season of Lent, my commitment is to make time and space for God to speak to me through various ways. One of which is through reading spiritual books such as Merton's, whose writing really prompts the reader to go deeper. Today I take an excerpt which touches on the topic of work and purpose.

Although Merton's writing is not as straight forward as some might prefer, I enjoy reading his works because of the insight into his thinking. The way he presents the human person and their relation to the world is something extraordinary. In this particular paragraph, he presents the cold hard fact that people who place their meaning of existence in their work is meaningless. It cannot be what spurs us on to live. 

We find ourselves so caught up with getting things done, chasing after the next reward, that we fail to realise that this is not living! The more we do, the less we have space to look inwards and ask ourselves the more important questions. Some people just cannot stop working because they are afraid of the silence, of the loneliness, of the void. Perhaps they are even afraid of coming to the realisation that they have nothing worth living for once you take work out of the equation.

I challenge you today to pause, stand still and evaluate your life. For what are you living for, and for whom are you living for? Meaning and purpose is not found outside of self, it is found within us.