Prayer - Confronting Our Arrogance

The great teacher and mystic Thomas Merton offers this prayer:

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(from "Thoughts in Solitude")

The suggestion here is that seeking God pleases God even when the behaviors, decisions, and attitudes are not consistent with love, justice, redemption, or caring for those in need ... the very essence of who God is.    

The first time I ever read that quote, it was very comforting because I often wonder if my decisions and ways of living spring from the goodness of the Great Spirit or if they are born more of my own selfish ways. When applied to myself, the passage was reassuring that my heart of seeking can, in and of itself, be a way of being in union with God.

But today when I read this passage I had a very challenging and disturbing response. I am regularly horrified when I look at the destructive, hateful, judgmental, divisive, and exclusive attitudes of many people who say that they are followers of Christ. Currently, the United States, and western culture generally, is lead by arrogant and destructive "Christian" people. And I find myself very judgmental and sometimes even hateful toward them. Obviously, I need to scrutinize my own attitudes in regards to these souls. 

Merton's quote raises a question about whether or not the Divine Spirit is pleased with the seeking of so many seekers that end up far from the actual work of Christ or anything for which Jesus actually stood and died. Jesus' life and death was founded on extraordinary non-judgmental love. Is the seeking pleasing to God? I would like to reserve the right to be disgusted by hateful followers of Christ in any form, but perhaps the seeking heart, in its innocence, is an outworking of the very nature of God which is in and through us all.

And then as I pondered the quote further, I found a bit of comfort in the thought that seeking God, in other words paying attention to the inner prompt to move beyond our small self and encounter that which is greater than ourselves, is the kind of seeking that is pleasing to God. Letting go of small ego pursuits and giving way to that which is out of my control and finding my grounding in that which is in me but also beyond myself, is seeking that brings life and new possibilities and powerful loving action. Perhaps that is what Merton is implying.

Whether or not he is challenging me to consider my own judgmental attitudes toward those that I feel are judgmental, or he is calling us to a deeper awareness of what seeking actually requires, either way, we are made better by the depth of seeking. Perhaps the seeking, and praying, requires a daily or hourly, or minute by minute re-evaluation of my ego-demands and beliefs and sense of control.    

So ... Seekers ... Humbly seek with all your heart knowing that the One for which you seek has already found you. You are found before you seek. You are known as you seek. You are re-created and developed as you seek. And you are home, now, with the One for which you seek.   

Dr. Kirk Webb

Director of the Celtic Center