A Cloud of Witness:

As a product of a fast-paced society, I'm embarrassed to admit that, at times, I expect a sudden surge of spiritual energy and enlightenment based on a fifteen minute Bible reading and 10 minutes of prayer, as if, after a few clicks, I were expecting the words "Transaction Finished" to appear on my computer screen. It seems that many modern-day Christians suffer from a "deep spiritual-insight-deficiency," including myself. That is why we should feel indebted to mystics such as Father Thomas Merton for enriching our spiritual lives with his contemplation-tested insights.

The following excerpts come from the fifth chapter, "Things in Their Identity," of his book, New Seeds of Contemplation. The chapter begins with the following words: "A tree gives glory to God by being a tree… It is expressing an idea which is in God… The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him. When we hear the phrase, "identity crisis" we usually associate it with teens going through puberty, or with people with hyphenated identity like me (Korean-American). Merton, however, suggests that it is an elementary dilemma inherent in all human beings.

Merton begins by talking about trees and animals, but quickly establishes a major distinction as he compares them to humans. This distinction makes or breaks our ability to comprehend and claim our true, intended identity: Trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied. With us is different. God leaves us free to be whatever we like. We can be ourselves or not, as we please. We are at liberty to be real, or to be unreal. We may be true or false, the choice is ours (emphasis added).

Merton further points out that our free will is what enables us to actually participate in the creative work of God:We are even called to share with God the work of creating (author's emphasis) the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. And as much as we share the responsibility, unless we really "want it, or work at it," realizing and claiming our true, intended identity are as good as a pipe dream. "But unless I desire this identity," Merton writes, "and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done."

As much as it is a difficult "labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears," since "[it] demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation," it can never be accomplished by taking shortcuts. It requires, according to Merton, both faith and contemplation. "There is no way of attaining to the secret without faith. But contemplation is the greater and more precious gift, for it enables [us] to see and understand the work that He wants done." The consequence of not participating in the creative work of establishing our true, intended identity, which had been initiated by God, is sobering:

If I never become what I am meant to be, but always remain what I am not, I shall spend eternity contradicting myself by being at once something and nothing, a life that wants to live and is dead, a death that wants to be dead and cannot quite achieve its own death because it still has to exist. This, to me, sounds like hell. Merton calls it something else, but I'm not too far off the mark. "A life devoted to the cult of this shadow," according to Merton, "is what is called a life of sin."