LIVING THE THOUGHT

"All prayer, reading, meditation, and all the activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and our situation as willed by him."

Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer

"By prayer I do not mean asking, hoping, begging or bartering for that which one desires but, without formulating it, living the thought - 'Thy will be done!' In short, acknowledging wholeheartedly to ourselves that, whatever situation we find ourselves in, we are to regard it as an opportunity and a privilege as well as a challenge."

Henry Miller, Big Sur, p.205

Miller and Merton admired each others' work and exchanged letters in the early 1960s (The Courage for Truth). In one letter Merton enclosed a picture of himself, and Miller was stuck by Merton's resemblance to himself and to Jean Genet: "You too have the look of an ex-convict, of one who has been through hell and I think bear the traces of it" (July 4, 1964).

Jean Genet

Merton concurred: "Yes, I have often thought of the resemblence between our faces. I had not associated Genet with it, not knowing what he looks like. I suppose the person I most resemble, usually, is Picasso. That's what everybody says. Still I think it is a distinction to look like Picasso, Henry Miller, and Genet all at once. Pretty comprehensive. It seems to imply some kind of responsibility" (August 16, 1964).

Pablo Picasso

Elsewhere, in a letter to Chilean poet Hernan Lavin Cerda dated October 6, 1965, Merton comments that Miller is read for "kicks" because he has a reputation for being pornographic. "Actually," Merton continues, "he is a kind of secular monk with a sexual mysticism...."

I did not expect to come across a reflection on "Thy will be done" in Miller's work. Perhaps I should have known better. His thinking transforms the common view of prayer - asking, hoping, begging, bartering - into an attitude of mind and heart that finds expression in how we live our lives: "living the thought." It's a beatitude that connects with what Merton says about purity of heart being "an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and our situation as willed by Him" - but it goes beyond surrender and acceptance to embrace the positive in whatever situation we find ourselves in - "to regard it as a an opportunity and a privilege as well as a challenge."

We return to Aloysha in The Brothers Karamazov abandoning himself to divine providence - "Nothing is rejected, but everything accepted as from God's hand" (Inchausti).