despairing humility

it has been a great while since i've picked up merton. i've wandered so far away from his writings, now that i return, i find them familiar, a kindred. a mentor. a friend. i'm glad to be back. in thoughts in solitude, he writes:

Teach me to bear a humility which shows me, without ceasing, that I am a liar and a fraud and that, even though this is so, I have an obligation to strive after truth, to be as true as I can, even though I will inevitably find all my truth half poisoned with deceit. This is the terrible thing about humility: that it is never fully successful. If it were only possible to be completely humble on this earth. But no, that is the trouble: You, Lord, were humble. But our humility consists in being proud and knowing all about it, and being crushed by the unbearable weight of it, and to be able to do so little about it.

How stern You are in Your mercy, and yet You must be. Your mercy has to be just because Your Truth has to be True. How stern You are, nevertheless, in Your mercy: for the more we struggle to be true, the more we discover our falsity. Is it merciful of Your light to bring us, inexorably, to despair?

No--it is not to despair that You bring me but to humility. For true humility is, in a way, a very real despair: despair of myself, in order that I may hope entirely in You.

What man can bear to fall into such darkness?

merton peers into my soul with these questions. for i have found falsity abounds. pettiness, abounds. sloth, abounds. all those godly attributes i strive after elude me. and i am left begging mercy. holding a tin cup in hand at the King's gate. unworthy, while at the same time sitting in the seat of honor at His table and feasting on abundance. the perplexing dichotomy cannot be remedied by will or effort. but by grace alone. i understand this.

merton's words further affirm something i've felt stirring in me for days.

it has been no secret the noise of this place would part me from my sanity if i let it. but i have often wondered, if meditation and solitude can only exist in "right" circumstance, or if they are not intended to actually right circumstances.

the peace we carry does not mean we live in a peaceful world. the joy we carry does not portray the joyous world. but perhaps, we carry these things to impart them.

i have long believed impartation to be a necessary and right conveyance for the gifts of the Spirit. but i had only understood it insofar as imparting gifts of which i was confident i've received. namely: writing, dance, etc. but i've always held, because we don't receive a gift, doesn't mean it was not given.

all the boon of heaven is at our disposal. all good and perfect gifts come from the Father of Lights, who has gifted us in spiritual places with EVERY heavenly blessing. so, if we have all the gifts all around us, maybe giving the gifts is key to receiving them. maybe.

joy has eluded me. silence, evades me. but is this their doing or mine?

i think it largely mine. the fault is my own. God has gifted these things to me. i have yet to receive them. perhaps, because i have yet to give them away. you cannot give away what you do not possess (a line i have lifted from merton who says: you cannot give up what you do not possess. he speaks of renunciation).

so in this place of noise. uncertainty. seeming chaos. i can rest in the gifts of God to me and draw them out for others. how this will look in actuality, i have no idea. but it is something that makes a great deal of sense.