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Discovering How Wrong We Are
Thomas Merton suggests, "Our discipline should lead us not to discover how right we are but how wrong we are." Groan. Even a great thinker like Thomas Merton is encouraging us to discover what is wrong with us. Double groan.
I'm not sure I like this exercise at all. If I am working to discover the wrong about me and I have an idea how someone else should be living their life, do I have to assume I am wrong and am therefore making a wrong judgment about what is right for them?
I'm only seeing one way out of this situation: Keep my mouth shut and mind my own business while allowing the discipline of God to create a new me. That's a proposition which is likely to consume the rest of my life.
"But basically, the discipline involved here is that of a crucifixion which eliminates a superficial and selfish kind of experience and opens to us the freedom of a life that is not dominated by egoism, vanity, willfulness, passion, aggressiveness, jealousy, greed. Finally, discipline means solitude of some sort, not in the sense of selfish withdrawal but in the sense of an emptiness that no longer cherishes the comfort of various social 'idols' and is not slavishly dependent on the approval of others. In such solitude one learns not to seek love but to give it. One's great need is now no longer to be loved, understood, accepted, pardoned, but to understand, to love, to pardon and accept others just as they are, in order to help them transcend themselves in love." --Thomas Merton
Jane Mullikin
Everyone talks about what is right--doing right--thinking right--and everyone knows exactly how we should be, act and think in order to be right. I cannot deal with all the different opinions of right. So, as I ponder "RIGHT", the thought drifts through my wee, feeble head that Jesus did everything backward to the way of the world. Does that mean I need to be pondering where I am wrong in order to gain insight into what is right? Let me tell you, it's a lot easier to list the things that are right about me than it is to accept the idea things might be wrong.
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