As we enter the season of Advent, a season of transformation, anticipation and revelation found through the movements of the Holy Spirit, I am struck by the contemplative, and often restorative, power of quiet.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Thomas Merton. He was a converted Roman Catholic who spent much of his childhood as an orphan shuffled between countries while studying writing and art. His upbringing gave him a certain disdain for contemporary life and after university he decided he had had enough of modern society and found home in a strictly regulated life as a Cistercian monk.
In his solitude and quietness, he found himself confronted with his previous rejection of society and came to believe that a full withdrawal from the world isn’t possible, that escape from societal and political woes was only an illusion. What the quietness offered Merton was an opportunity to listen deeper for the calling of the Spirit to utilize his new home in a way that would benefit those around him. He felt a duty to speak out and became a staunch supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement and wrote about race issues within the Church and white liberalism.
One of his biographers, William Shannon, wrote that, “what happened to him was that his solitude had issued into what all true solitude must eventually become: compassion. Finding God in his solitude, he found God’s people, who are inseparable from God and who, at the deepest level of their being (the level that only contemplation can reach), are at one with one another in God, the Hidden Ground of Love of all that is.”
While I’m not called to the regulated life of a monastic, I feel a comfort and challenge in the work of Thomas Merton and the revelations that transformed him in his solitude and quiet.
Advent and Christmas are seasons full of activity and people, which often come with expectations and financial strains. In this overwhelming and overstimulating time, it can be hard to find quiet, whether that is literal quiet or the quieting of our distractions.
This Advent, I am taking a peace. In such places love can blossom. note from Thomas Merton and creating space for these kinds of moments; moments to pause and find
“the Hidden Ground of Love of all” in the quiet which I pray will deepen my compassion. I pray you find those moments, too, as we open ourselves to the transformation, anticipation and revelation found through the movements of the Holy Spirit within us this season.