Pastors, missionary leader, heads of campus ministries and other vocational leaders want to create organizations that encourage spiritual growth. The reality is that sometimes, the very structures within which we live and minister can begin to get in the way.
I read the quotation below from Thomas Merton a few years ago. It comes from a letter he wrote in 1959 to an emerging Latin American leader. He had been in the monastery at Gethsemani then for nearly twenty years. As you read his perspective on the monastic environment in which he had lived nearly two decades of life, think about the church, ministry and mission setting in which you have lived yours. Where are there echoes? Where are there differences?
“the peculiar circumstances of this monastery prevent real spiritual growth. Underneath the superficial and somewhat good humor, with its façade of juvenile [casualness], lie the deep fear and anxiety that come from a lack of real interior life. We have the words, the slogans, and the notions. We cultivate the pageantry of the monastic life. We go in for singing, ritual, and all the external. And ceremonies are very useful in dazzling the newcomer, and keeping him happy for a while. But there seems to be a growing realization that for a great many in the community this is all a surface of piety which overlies a fake mysticism and a complete [emptiness] of soul. Hence the growing restlessness, the rebellions, the strange departures of priests, the hopelessness which only the very stubborn can resist, with the aid of their self-fabricated methods of reassurance.” (Thomas Merton. The Courage for Truth. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993, p. 112)
What is it in particular that Merton suggests is preventing spiritual growth in his monastery? It seems to be a failure to attend to the deep resistances of fear and anxiety underneath the outward appearance of spiritual vitality. There is a difference between emotional excitement and spiritual life. Exciting music and energized preaching may or may not touch these deeper places that keep us from really engaging God.
What do you think?
Buy a copy of Courage For Truth: The Letters Of Thomas Merton To Writers
oh yeah….the flesh always tries to find a way to grow itself.
Alan, this is a great reminder to all of us when we sense the church, ministry and mission settings become the very hindrance to our interior filling and growth. I have sensed this in ministry and at church but I couldn’t really put my finger on it. The very things we consider to be good, wholesome and spiritually inviting can become the very things that prevent spiritual growth. When this happens, what practical things should we do? And what ways can we articulate this message to people in the church?
Thanks, Virgil, for your helpful response. I’m posting a couple more Merton quotations in the next few days that add to this conversation. I hope they help…
I thiiiiink….yes! I wonder how often our desire to grow and do the spiritual formation thing actually replaces the work of Christ for us and in us. How naturally we adopt the habit of self dependence as opposed to Christ dependence, and how subtle is the shift! Doesn’t this shift always lead to either pride or emptiness/hopelessness?
Thanks for the comment, Jen. Well said…