Wow. A whole week slipped by me somehow. Back to Merton Mondays…

[The truly humble man] is able to see quite clearly that what is useful to him may be useless for somebody else, and what helps others to be saints might ruin him. That is why humility brings with it a deep refinement of spirit, a peacefulness, a tact and a common sense without which there is no sane morality.

It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone… —New Seeds, chapter 14

Of course Merton understood that we find ourselves and we find God in the lives and love of other people, but he also took great pains to point out that while we are doing so, the working out of our salvation is a mystery which occurs in our internal lives, between each individual and God. In my estimate, what is so very important in Merton's presentations is his understanding that this occurs only when we are each free to be our self as God created us. This freedom must be allowed by others, certainly, but also by ourselves. Both are difficult, and their necessity cannot be overestimated.

This is, at the very least, one of the core weaknesses in mainstream Christianity; that in the name of being holy we spend our lives trying to be something we were never intended to be—while in truth each precludes the other.