Today we continue from Merton's chapter "Everything that Is, Is Holy" in "New Seeds of Contemplation."
Those who try to escape from this situation (using things to worship ourselves - as idols) by treating the good things of God as if they were evils are only confirming themselves in a terrible illusion. They are like Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the serpent in Eden. "Woman has tempted me. Wine has tempted me. Food has tempted me. Woman is pernicious, wine is poison, food is death. I must hate and revile them. By hating them I will please God..." These are the thoughts and attitudes of a baby, of a savage and of an idolater who seeks by magic incantations and spells to protect his egotistic self and placate the insatiable little god in his own heart. To take such an idol for God is the worst kind of self-deception. It turns a person into a fanatic, no longer capable of sustained contact with the truth, no longer capable of genuine love.
In trying to believe in their ego as something "holy" these fanatics look upon everything else as unholy.
It is there in the last line that I thought how important this work is. I mean this for all of us. How easy it is to set up a world of "holy" and "unholy." Merton calls it correctly...this is how fanatics look at the world and what is the meaning of holy. The blame game never ends. We are always looking at ways to point our fingers. I think that is one of the reasons we jump into some of our wars. We live in fear. We live with the understanding that what we have and who we are is the way all things must be. Therefore, all else is to be questioned if not completely judged as evil. So when a person want to enter into dialogue and talk through options and look at plans of reconciliation and possible new ways to see old relationships, those people are called names - reviled - and we are warned about eh potential of being destroyed by such actions. Alas, fear is put in motion and we begin to label some things "holy" to us and others as "unholy" to us. It is a shame. And yet, we must all remember that we each have that capacity to be fanatics about this or that. We all seek to protect what is ours over and against the other.
Connection: Holy is the Lord God. Holy is all that God creates. Now, how do we consider that throughout the day and in the presence of people and things we would like to make into unholy objects in our lives?
Blessed are you, Holy God. You have made us in your image and you have created all things and announced that they were good. Turn us from our need to divide your loving work into categories that help us forget the blessedness of all things. Amen.
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