Several months ago I was involved in a friendly office argument with a Southern Baptist, Trump supporter. She argued that much of her support for Trump had to do with his efforts to keep the terrorists, especially Middle-Eastern terrorists, out of America. She was (is) genuinely afraid of Middle-Easterners. She challenged me to live with Muslims for a few months, as if I did, then I would know.
Some day, I am going to take her up on her challenge and live with Muslims in a Muslim community for a few months. This is on my to-do-in-this-life list. I imagine being a better human being for the experience.
I cannot help but to think of this young, Christian woman as I read from Thomas Merton this morning and as we move into Easter Sunday.
To make a long story short, I fell away from organized, theological Christianity and so I make no claims to Christian righteousness. Ironically, it’s in my post Christian life that I see more clearly the hypocrisy of too many Christians so well, I see how many Christians are missing Christ. This is very pronounced in our current political climate.
Though I align more with Buddhism today, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, 1915-1968, does speak to me; he moves me. If I have a soul, then he speaks to it. He stirs the spirit within me. I honor Merton for his views on social justice, but also his views on the beauty found in all religious traditions; and especially Eastern traditions, i.e., Buddhism. Also, Merton had a brain and voice and he was not afraid to use them to advance the good news.
As Easter is upon us, and as I struggle in our current political climate, I wanted to share a segment of Merton’s writing with the DK readership this morning. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did, and that it provides texture for our times.
I hope that whatever faith/wisdom tradition you hold to, that you have a wonderful weekend filled with peace and contentment.
A young priest was sent to preach on Sunday in a “white” Catholic parish in New Orleans. He based his sermon on the Gospel of Sunday, in which Christ spoke of the twofold commandment, love of God and love of one’s brother, which is the essence of Christian morality.
The priest, in his sermon, took occasion to point out that this commandment applied to the problem of racial segregation, and that white people and black people ought certainly to love one another to the extent of accepting one another in an integrated society.
He was halfway through the sermon, and the gist of his remarks was becoming abundantly clear, when a man stood up in the middle of the congregation and shouted angrily: “I didn’t come here to listen to this kind of junk, I came to hear the Mass!”
The priest stopped and waited. This exasperated the man even more, and he demanded that the sermon be brought to an end at once, otherwise he would leave.
The priest continued to wait in silence, and another man in the congregation, amid the murmuring support of many voices, got up and protested against this doctrine to which he saw fit to refer to as “crap.”
As the priest still said nothing, the two men left the church followed by about fifty other solid Christians in the congregation. As he went out, the first of them shouted over his shoulder at the priest: “If I miss Mass today, it’s your fault.”
This meaning is simple and objective. Quite apart from the subjective dispositions, the probable sincerity of the warped consciences of the people involved, there is an objective fact manifested here. That fact is that one can think himself a “Good Christian” and be thought one by his neighbors, and be, in effect, an apostate from the Christian faith.
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton