The simplicity of truth

Colossians 2:2-10

         Today the church remembers a person who arguably is the one responsible for a large chunk of my mature faith. At the very least, Thomas Merton seemed able to write and synthesize the thoughts and beliefs in my own heart and soul. Thomas Merton was a mentor and a kindred spirit.

         As I started to write this blog entry (yesterday) I was overcome by the quality of the day. I am once again on the bridge of the SS ManFish here in the North Atlantic. The rain is pulsing against the windows and the seas seem as if they will swallow what little stands between us and the frigid waters below.  It seems a limbo-like state of being. Stand firm at the helm, do not go out , just stay put. It's not like I have much a choice as I still am recuperating from major surgery 3 weeks ago. I have already been in a kind of limbo. 

         This limbo though acts as lens for me to view my life. What makes me a faithful person? What gives life meaning and purpose? Right now it certainly is not any kind of significant communication or actions on my part, I am very limited indeed.  Walking if not pacing, is my primary means of exercise and movement.  So, infirmed and in limbo, what do I have to say about my faith and God's love?  This is where today's passage and Thomas Merton call to me louder than the howls of wind and driving rain pelting the windows.

         Merton spoke to me in more than any treatise or a pattern of logic and arguments set forth by a doctor of the church or any ancient philosopher.  Arguments can be made, remade, falsified and bastardized for almost any belief. One need only look outside at some of the horrific uses of Holy Scripture ( in almost any faith ) to justify condemnation, hate and killing all of which seem to me to be anathema to the fundamentals of God.  This is one of the things that Merton spoke of, not rules and rubrics as I say but of core beliefs and the fundamentals that God reveals in the varied religions and faiths of the world. He had said that if we were to compare religions on a tenet by tenet basis we would never find solidarity or common ground. But the fundamentals that God reveals to us can be seen in every religion and those fundamentals are our common ground, the facets of God's love that we can all see and agree on. This vision allowed Merton to be accepted by the Buddhist, the Trappist, the Jew and the Muslim all at the same time. How simply beautiful, ahhh, the simplicity of truth.  There are no false arguments, no twisting of logic, no minutia that needs to be fulfilled in order for salvation or love to be offered or accepted.

           So today, sitting here atop the stormy seas of limbo, I know that it is not all those rules and rubrics that saves me or guarantees the love of my God, my creator. Nor do the small acts of faith or personal acts of piety make me holy. These things can help one's faith and bring us closer to God but these are certainly not guarantees. In the simplest form we are loved into existence by God and we are loved as we exist. Our goal is to accept that love and mirror that love back to God by loving others as God created them. That is, as uniquely as God created us. 

        I suppose I look at life like a labyrinth. It is a journey towards God. When people make like overly complicated they replace the labyrinth  (or mistake the labyrinth) for a maze. A maze is the surest way of getting lost, filled with twists and dead ends. So I would say settle in on the journey and do not let rules, rubrics and false logic make your life into a maze. Enjoy the simplicity of faith and life and allow life to be the joyful journey to God that it is meant to be. Uncomplicated, simple truth.

          Thank you Thomas. 

I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice to see your morale and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.