COLUMN: Meditation outside the monastery

From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '98 From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '98In 1941, Thomas Merton made his break with society. Once an agnostic, Merton converted to Catholicism and had decided that his future lay with the Trappist Monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky. Still, Merton's decision is remarkable, mainly because withdrawing from society and entering a monastery is the last thing that we -- myself included -- can see ourselves doing anytime soon. Perhaps it's because I'm Protestant, but I've always been fascinated with the monastic life of contemplation. Virtually every religion on Earth features some communal group that strives to lead a more ascetic life in community with one another. In fact, monasticism as an institution predates history. In 500 A.D., St. Benedict dictated his "Rule for Monasteries." It called for, among other things, obedience, humility and separation. Today, the Trappists, a sub-order of the Benedictine Monks, hold true to Benedict's decree, swearing vows of stability, fidelity and obedience. The last half of the 20th century, though, hasn't been kind to either the Trappists or any other order. In 1953, Gethsemani had 250 monks. By 1998, that number had fallen to 71, with an average age of 64 among them. Still, Fenton Johnson writes in the September issue of Harper's that "as monastic professions have declined, American interest in contemplative life has intensified." While Johnson argues that this interest is indicative of a society of spiritual seekers dissatisfied with the conventions of the established Church, I'm not so sure the opposite isn't true. The reason that we find the contemplative life so interesting is precisely because we, in general, are not seekers. The idea of subservient contemplation is a largely foreign concept in our culture. As Merton defined it in his Asian Journal, "The contemplative life must provide an area, a space of liberty, of silence, in which possibilities are allowed to surface and new choices -- beyond routine choice -- become manifest. "It should create a new experience of time? one's own time, but not dominated by one's ego and its demands? compassionate time; rooted in the sense of common illusion and in criticism of it." That's a very different philosophy from what we usually encounter. When was the last time any of us purposely spent any time by ourselves, much less time not defined by our own desires? Sadly, the answer to that questions is, for many of us, "not recently," which is odd, since a contemplative alternative to life should especially appeal to Americans. As Merton biographer Thomas King notes, Merton "believed Americans were caught in 'total activism,' a 'frantic activity.' People work a 60-hour week and complain they are the victims of modern life." In other words, the contemplative life looks better and better when compared to the hectic environment of constant activity that has become the norm. The message aptly applies to business majors and pre-professionals, but it also holds truth for academics and scholars. As any medieval historian can tell you, monks were for over 1,000 years the only bastion of academia in Western civilization, keepers of the flame of knowledge. As Mark Noll writes, "When the light of learning flickered low in Europe, monks preserved the precious texts of Scripture and other Christian writings." Obviously, the last thing I want to suggest is a return to the Dark Ages, or even that we should all hurriedly enlist in convents and monasteries. In fact, one of the chief complaints -- and I think it's a good one -- that Reformed thinkers held against monasteries was that it cloistered not only people, but also knowledge and examples of ideal living, keeping them unseen by the common layman. But I think it's possible to live a contemplative life even outside of a monastery. In a recent Newsweek, Kenneth Woodward notes the unsuccessful efforts of Joan Baez and other activists to lure Merton out of his solitary life and into the front lines of their movements. Though Merton made it clear that his place was at Gethsemani, it would have been interesting to see him reflect on society from the midst of it, teaching and reflecting like a modern-day Socrates. Merton, like his lifestyle, appealed to many. His autobiographical The Seven Storey Mountain sold 600,000 copies in hardback despite the fact that -- as Woodward notes --The New York Times refused to put a "religious book" on its best-seller list. Merton died at the end of one of the most tumultuous years in American history: 1968. After a full year of turmoil, he left us a shining example of contemplative life. Few of us will ever join a monastery, but perhaps what's more important is that we learn to abandon our egocentric perspective and instead take in our surroundings from a more reflective point of view. For the most part, we've let Balkan strife, Presidential scandal and urban poverty pass us by because of its perceived irrelevance. Perhaps it's time to take a harder, more contemplative look at the world we live in, not for ourselves, but rather for the sake of others.