In his book, Conjectures from a Guilty Bystander, Merton offers this testimony to wonder and awe.
I stepped out of the north wing of the monastery and looked out at the pasture where the calves usually are. It was empty of calves. Instead, there was a small white colt, running beautifully up the hill, and down, and around again, with a long smooth stride and with the ease of flight. Yet in the middle of it he would break into rough, delightful cavorting, hurling himself sideways at the wind and the hill and instantly sliding back into the smooth canter. How beautiful is life this spring!
How keenly Merton was observing the beauty of the spring morning in Kentucky on that day and how moved he was by the new-born colt.
Interestingly enough, Eckhart too offers a rich meditation on horses in his keen love of nature at work when he compares God’s joy at observing us—God “finds joy and rapture in us”– to our joy at observing a horse in a meadow.
Just as the horse would want “to pour forth its whole strength in leaping about in the meadow, so too it is a joy to God to pour out the divine nature and being completely into his likeness, since he is the likeness himself.” Eckhart grew up in horse country in Germany and his ancestors were knights and horsemen and women; so too Merton, living in Kentucky, was surrounded by a milieu of horse country.
It was only the year of Merton’s death, 1968, that science first began to apply the evolutionary principle to the universe itself and I think that had he lived to learn the new cosmology and its abundant teachings on the “sacredness of life” and of being, Merton’s sense of “spiritual wonder” would have been aroused deeply.
Thomas Berry puts it this way.
The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth….In the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself….The feeling of presence to a sacred universe can appear once more to dynamize and sustain human affairs.
This “exuberant expression of existence itself” Merton captured above in his depiction of the young colt’s “delightful cavorting.” Clearly Merton and Eckhart and Berry are looking at the same universe—and responding to it with praise and joy and gratitude. This is all the Via Positiva at work.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 50-52.
And Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, pp. 309, 361.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: “In the Pipeline.” Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Is it true that the universe is an “exuberant expression of existence itself”? Are we teaching our children that? And ourselves?
Recommended Reading
A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
13 thoughts on “More Via Positiva from Merton, Eckhart & Thomas Berry”
Matthew, Today our Queries for Contemplation asks us: “Is it true that the universe is an ‘exuberant expression of existence itself’?” I agree with Thomas Berry who tells us is, in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself….The feeling of presence to a sacred universe can appear once more to dynamize and sustain human affairs.” Institutions like the Holy Inquisition, the Church didn’t stop until the whole witch craze, which was motivated by crazy ideas, stopped!
“Are we teaching our children that?” “And ourselves?” Mother Earth is good and we must treat her with respect–that is, in terms of its fruits.
P.S. And the dancing was beautiful !!!
Within today’s DM, I found Merton’s poem to be rather observant of the fragmented human condition. I realized, through today’s teachings and the accompanying videos, how the creation of the all and the everything of existence, can be and is a healing balm for this. I also recognized the importance of the teachings of the creation spirituality of Original Blessings, as an important healing balm as well.
Fall redemption religion and all that lies within this, has done nothing but fragmented humanity, not only from experiencing the joy of one’s own self and one’s own existence, but it has also disconnected humanity from the healing balm offered through the all and the everything that exists within creation itself. Humanity it seems, has been trying to fill the void that this fragmentation falsely created ever since… with materialism, power, and many other illusions.
As Merton stated… the most important journey, is the one of returning to one’s true self… which leads us not only to healing this deep soul wound but that also leads us to wholeness. Creation spirituality is one pathway that awakens humanity to rediscovering and reclaiming the exuberant expressions of our own existence and the Original Blessings of who we are, in relationship with the all and the everything. Truly this is very good news… the true gospel message that Jesus gave of himself and his life to deliver.
Jeanette, I like how you end your post today: “the most important journey, is the one of returning to one’s true self… which leads us not only to healing this deep soul wound but that also leads us to wholeness. Creation spirituality is one pathway that awakens humanity to rediscovering and reclaiming the exuberant expressions of our own existence and the Original Blessings of who we are, in relationship with the all and the everything. Truly this is very good news…”
The Caroline Richardson performance was exquisite. Thank you.
Thank you Matthew.
Thomas Merton’s poem is a beacon in the darkness of the dystopian decades since Merton’s passing…endless wars, climate change, pandemic, degrading democracies….
The exquisite Sacred Earth dance reminded me of the 1963 Irish hymn/song LORD OF THE DANCE which always inspired me. I searched online and found many vibrant song/dance renditions. I provide a link to one of them.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Lord+of+the+Dance+Lyrics&&view=detail&mid=251FBB9C8E0AFD8EB600251FBB9C8E0AFD8EB600&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DLord%2Bof%2Bthe%2BDance%2BLyrics%26FORM%3DVDMHRS
Gwen, Thanks for the link !!!
Here is Lord of the Dance with transcendent art accompanying the mystic lyrics. It acknowledges death [Good Friday] and celebrates resurrection [Easter Sunday]:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lordsong+lord+of+the+dance&docid=608045714481027138&mid=CBE8F4522577584CFC02CBE8F4522577584CFC02&view=detail&FORM=VRAASM&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DLord%2Bof%2Bthe%2BDance%26Form%3DVDRSCL%26%3D0
This is where I truly live. }:- a.m.
Matthew, another beautiful and profound spiritual meditation! The mystics, saints, and shamans experience the Sacredness, Love, Wisdom, Beauty, Joy… of All ongoing Creation not only among and around us, but importantly it has to start within us… The contemplative spiritual journey involves experiencing God’s healing, purifying, transformative Divine Love within us so we can experience and be aware of God’s Loving Oneness and Beauty in the Presence of All of God’s Diverse and ongoing Creation in our eternal souls, our relations with one another, Mother Earth and all Her creatures, the spiritual multidimensions, and All the Cosmos… Like the mystics say, we become aware of being, seeing, experiencing through God’s Eyes and Heart….
🔥❤️🙏
I love that poem by Thomas Merton. Though written a half century ago, Merton accurately expresses the sadness of 21st Century human culture. It brings to mind, among other thoughts, the vapidness of Elon Musk’s aspirations. As counterpoint, turning to the Via Creativa, I offer the poem, “Philadelphicum,” which I wrote after sitting beside my summer garden one morning.
Philadelphicum by Michele McFadden (aka Micki Shelton, playwright)
Yesterday
Sitting beside my garden
I happened a glance
As I do between pages of my book
And thoughts of meditating
(An oxymoron certainly)
I caught sight of
Broad orange petals
Flashy purple stamens
A lily of sorts
Where
Yesterday
Had been a bud
Lilium philadelphicum,
I later learned
Spectacular with those delicate purple spots
In a sea of nearly yellow at the start of each petal
Near the ovary
Gazing
I saw beside it
Its sister
Still demure
I wound my way around the wire fences
I’d put into the garden
To keep out whatever critters
Had eaten the tops off all my tomato plants
And devoured all the pansy blossoms
Over the weekend
And sat
Waiting
Beside the columbines
There
Before my eyes
As the sun made a show of her sister’s wild hue
This shy one
Spread her petals—a larghetto of motion
Then popped open
With an audible puff
Today
A sparrow at my elbow
Drinking
Having wound my way again around the wire fences
I sit beside another chartreuse and orange bud
Waiting for beauty to explode again.
Michele, Thank you so much for your very evocative poem !!!
Only a handful of people are teaching their children about the Knowing Existence of the universe and about the wonders of All. This is something I’ve been addressing with the young parents in my family—the dominant culture demands “progress” at all costs. Success is making money. It’s all our schools teach. Field trips are similar to the antiseptic tour buses you see in destination places—the people have spent exhausting hours crossing oceans to board buses that speed along so they can catch a flash of Places Of Interest and maybe make a photo through a bus window—kids going to a museum, made to walk in a straight line, listening to staccato listings of famous works of art, eating their sandwich in the parking lot, then returning to the school — they should be out in Nature, restoring a stream, cleaning up a trail, or examining a jellyfish washed up on the beach — a scene I once observed when I noticed several mommies gathered seriously around a dead cabbagehead jellyfish and wondering if they should “call someone.”
No. Kids are not being taught any wonders at all.
So at every opportunity, I show my great grandchildren broken blue eggshells that have fallen from an overhead nest; a piece of obsidian that rose out of the back yard dirt; the guardian quail who stands watch while the flock forages. I put baby flounder in an acquarium and show them how it buries itself in the sand and how it shoots up for a meal when you drop a baby crab in there. I say, “Listen! That’s a coyote!”
I read them Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I can move the grass apart, and put my finger on Your heart!”
Olive, Thank you so much for your comment. I do have however, one comment of my own, in response to yours. You write: “No. Kids are not being taught any wonders at all.” BUT then you write this: “So at every opportunity, I show my great grandchildren broken blue eggshells that have fallen from an overhead nest; a piece of obsidian that rose out of the back yard dirt; the guardian quail who stands watch while the flock forages. I put baby flounder in an aquarium and show them how it buries itself in the sand and how it shoots up for a meal when you drop a baby crab in there. I say, ‘Listen! That’s a coyote!'” See, by your own comment you say, that you use every opportunity to show your children nature. So at least some Kids are being taught wonders today. Viva la Via Positiva !!!