Merton and the Spiritual Life

June 20, 2025 joanna seibert

Thomas Merton and the Spiritual Life

“The only trouble is that in the spiritual life, there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God’s will and his grace.”—Thomas Merton in Contemplative Prayers.

Thomas Merton’s concise book, Spiritual Direction and Meditation, is another excellent source for those seeking to learn about spiritual direction and the spiritual life. I often recommend it to spiritual friends before we meet to discuss the spiritual life for the first time. It should also be a frequent reread for those giving spiritual direction. Merton reminds us that spiritual direction is not psychotherapy, and directors should not become amateur therapists. He recommends directors not worry about unconscious drives and emotional problems. They should refer.

Merton’s sections on meditations are classic, straightforward, and practical. For example, he uses the story of the Prodigal Son to serve as a model for reflection, as the son “entered into himself” and meditated on his condition, starving in a distant land far from his father. Merton also suggests that the Incarnation, the birth of God into human form, serves as a focus for another meditation on birth events within our own spiritual life.

Merton emphasizes the importance of holy leisure, believing that meditation should not be treated as work and remembering that it requires time. He reminds us of promising artists ruined by premature success, which drove them to overwork in an attempt to continually renew the image of themselves created in the public mind. On the other hand, wise artists spend more time contemplating their work beforehand than putting paint on canvas; poets who respect their art burn more pages than they publish.

In our interior life, we must allow for intervals of silent transition in our prayer life. Merton reminds us of the words of St. Teresa: “God does not need our works. God has need of our love.” Our prayer life aims to awaken the Holy Spirit within us, so that the Spirit can speak and pray through us. Merton believes that in contemplative prayer, we learn more about God through love than knowledge. Our awakening is brought on not by our actions, but by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Merton also cautions us about what he calls informal or colloquial “comic book spirituality,” which flourishes in popular religious literature. For example, when Mary becomes Mom and Joseph is Dad, and we “just tell them all about ourselves all day long.” For some, this may be a helpful path to God, but it was not Merton’s path.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Thank you for supporting our camp and conference center, Camp Mitchell, on top of Petit Jean Mountain, by buying this book in the daily series of writings for the liturgical year, A Daily Spiritual Rx for Ordinary Time: Readings from Pentecost to Advent. All proceeds from the sale of the books will go to Camp Mitchell. If you enjoy this book, could you please take a moment to write a brief recommendation on its Amazon page? https://smile.amazon.com/Daily-Spiritual-Ordinary-Time-Pentecost/dp/B08JLTZYGH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=joanna+seibert+books&qid=1621104335&sr=8-1

More thank-you’s than we can say!!!

Synchronicity. God Moments

June 19, 2025 joanna seibert

Frederick Buechner, Patrick Murray, Carl Jung: Synchronicity

“I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter’s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then.

The word was TRUST. … The owner of the car turned out to be, as I’d suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.”—Frederick Buechner in Telling Secrets (HarperOne, 1991).

Frederick Buechner beautifully relates this instance of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences, also known as serendipity. Many believe that such an experience occurs when the unconscious mind speaks to our conscious mind. How this happens is a mystery. Jung and Patrick Murray describe it as “a simultaneous relationship between an inner psychic experience and outer external physical event.” The inner experience and external event of the synchronicity then become “a meaningful coincidence contributing to one’s sense of wholeness.”

In spiritual direction, we discuss seeking times of synchronicity, the occurrence of meaningful coincidences, being aware of them, and pondering them—not letting them pass unnoticed. Patrick Murray calls these “moments of transformation, embracing us with a profound sense that life is ultimately purposeful.” Some believe these are a sign that we are on the right path.

We sense a divine connection. A friend happens to call just when we needed it. We turn on the radio and hear a musical piece that brings back pleasant memories of hearing it with a loved one or dear friend. We feel peace. There are moments like that every day if we just step out of our routine to be aware of them.

Before the pandemic, I would stand in a particular spot and talk to those who came by for food at our food pantry. Once, when we arrived a little late, people were already sitting outside waiting for the bags filled with their orders. For an unknown reason, I decided to go out and greet people there.

Suddenly, I saw a friend I had worked with for thirty-three years who had just lost her job. We hugged, and she told me about her struggles to find another job. I saw courage and faith in a way I had never seen before. She had a plan and was not giving up, and she still felt cared for by a loving God. For me, this was synchronicity—that by some miracle, we ran into each other and could openly share the Christ within each other for a few moments.

I will put this visit in the memory book of my imagination, and hope to remember to be on the lookout each day for times like this—when the Holy Spirit calls us and offers us an opportunity to share Christ in one another.

At our staff meetings at Saint Mark’s, our rector begins the meeting with prayer and then asks if we have any “God moments” from the week to share.

Times of synchronicity are “God moments.”

[See Patrick Murray, “Jung’s Concept of Synchronicity,” The Haden Institute, December 2002.]

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Morning Prayer

June 18, 2025 joanna seibert

Morning Prayer

“But as for me, O LORD, I cry to you for help;

In the morning my prayer comes before you.”—Psalm 88:14.

Many people use a spiritual discipline, beginning and sometimes ending the day by reading and meditating on Holy Scripture. Many denominations follow a daily lectionary of Scripture readings. Over a specific period, the reader has studied significant parts of the whole Bible.

In the Episcopal tradition, the Book of Common Prayer outlines a two-year cycle of daily lessons, comprising Psalms, the Hebrew Scriptures, a New Testament letter, and one of the Gospels, to be read each morning and evening. By the end of each seven weeks, the reader has digested the entire Book of Psalms. After the two-year cycle, the reader has been exposed twice to all of the New Testament and once to pertinent portions of the Hebrew Scriptures.

We can also incorporate Scripture readings into a structured morning and evening prayer service, read alone or with others. These Daily Offices provide a contemplative framework for regular use and offer a pattern for regular reading of the Bible. In addition, some people use a daily meditation book containing Scripture readings; others use publications such as The Upper Room (Methodist), Forward Day By Day (Episcopal), and Catholic resources like The Catholic Moment, The Word Among Us, and Being Catholic. Some of these meditations are available online for reading or listening.

The Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer are also online. One of the most popular office sites is The Mission of St. Clare, www.missionstclare.com. I use the Daily Office https://dailyoffice.wordpress.com/ online because of their additional artwork.

I am part of a group of people continuing Community of Hope training for pastoral care, who read daily meditations from Joan Chittister’s book on The Rule of Benedict. I had forgotten what a treasure it is to read myself and then read what others have said. I learn so much more from others. God speaks much more clearly in community.

Morning Prayer is offered Monday through Friday in this beautiful chapel at Saint Mark’s. Noon-day prayers are provided on Saint Mark’s Facebook Page (Love St. Mark’s https://www.facebook.com/stmarkslr ) Monday through Friday.

I hope to hear from many others about their use of other daily meditations and ways of structuring daily Scripture readings.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

More thank-you’s than we can say!!!