I’ve narrowed down my blogging options to precisely two, but haven’t yet decided whether to quit blogging altogether, or devote future posts exclusively to contemplative prayer. As therapeutic as writing these posts has been for me, I’m no longer interested in casual blogging, and feel it’s time to begin the next phase of my spiritual journey in earnest and work toward transcending my ego. My famous arrogance, which is nothing more than a superficial and obvious–even to me!–attempt to compensate for my inadequacies, dominates my public persona, and is most evident in my blog posts, where I automatically adopt an aggressive, argumentative tone in response to ideological and religious ”enemies,” real and imagined. I simply refuse to feed and nurture the egocentric part of myself any longer. A passage from Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Prayer captures the essence of my spiritual struggle:
The living experience of divine love and the Holy Spirit … is an experience of mystical renewal, an inner transformation brought about entirely by the power of God’s merciful love, implying the ‘death’ of the self-centered and self-sufficient ego and the appearance of a new and liberated self who lives and acts ‘in the Spirit’. But if the old self, the calculating and autonomous ego, merely seeks to imitate the effects of such regeneration, for its own satisfaction and advantage, the effect is exactly the opposite–the ego seeks to confirm itself in its own selfish existence. The grain of wheat has not fallen into the ground and died. It remains hard, isolated and dry and there is no fruit at all, only a lying and blasphemous boast–a ridiculous pretense!
Over the past several months, I’ve become acutely aware of my “ridiculous pretenses,” and yet am happier now than I’ve been in years. It’s a wonderful feeling, and indicates I’m on the right track spiritually. I’m devouring the classic texts on contemplative prayer and remain resolute in my decision to become a Lay Carmelite. I’ve especially enjoyed, in addition to Merton’s work, Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God, and Josef Pieper’s Happiness and Contemplation. I remain open to Eastern spirituality of the Zen Buddhist variety as well, but won’t be writing any haiku poems just yet.
