This Wisdom From a 1966 Letter Gives Me Hope
Encouragement from Thomas Merton that is as relevant today as it was then
It’s amazing how often words written many years ago speak to today’s realities. A 1966 letter from Trappist monk Thomas Merton to his friend Jim Forest is a great example of this.
If you’ve never heard of Jim Forest and want to learn more about him, go here. The short version is that he was the co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship.
As the Vietnam War escalated, Forest wrote to Merton to express how discouraged he was by the ignorance and apathy of many Americans, especially Christians, about what was happening. He questioned whether his work was making any difference.
You can read his letter here. These words jumped out at me:
It all seems so utterly clear. You do not murder. You do not kill the innocent. You do not treat people like blemishes on the landscape…
Yet no group seems more distant from these facts than Christian Americans.
That sums up my opinion and experience of life in the United States today perfectly. It’s the primary reason I decided I no longer wanted to be a pastor.
Merton’s response, which I discovered thanks to Jim Wallis’ newsletter, is as encouraging and inspirational today as it was then.
As it originally did for Forest in 1966, it gives me hope when I am discouraged. It motivates me to keep doing the work necessary to change lives, starting with my own.
Below are a few excerpts I find especially relevant and helpful today.
Focus on the value, not the results, of your work
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on … you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, and the truth of the work itself.
This is an ongoing struggle for me. I tend to focus too much on the results I hope to achieve and get discouraged when I don’t meet those goals. I ignore the value of what I learn and do along the way, and how it benefits me and others even when it doesn’t lead to the results I hoped for.
Can you relate?
See the importance of your thoughts
The next step in the process is for you to see that your own thinking about what you are doing is crucially important. You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work … That is not the right use of your work.
All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself … to be used by God’s love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.
Have you ever had someone tell you how much something you said or did a long time ago meant to them? Perhaps it even changed the course of their life, but you had no idea of the impact your words or actions made.
I have, both during my former career as a pastor and as a writer. The book I wrote over a decade ago, Timeless Truths for Troubled Times, is still deeply meaningful to readers today, and I love it when they let me know that.
I have also greatly benefitted from the words and actions of others. The teachers I had from kindergarten through high school, and the pastors who helped me survive my teenage and college years, have been some of the most important people in my life. I’ve told some of them as I’ve gotten older, and stayed in touch with a few.
All of us influence the lives of others, even if we never know it. Regardless of your religious beliefs (or lack of them), I believe the power of God’s love is at work in and through you.
The reason for hope
Nevertheless, you will probably, if you continue as you do, begin the laborious job of changing the national mind and opening up the national conscience. How far will you get? God alone knows. …
As for the big results, these are not in your hands or mine, but they can suddenly happen, and we can share in them…
The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do God’s will, we will be helping in this process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand…
I find great comfort and reason for hope in the fact that the “big results” are not in our hands. We can try to do God’s will and help in the process, but it is God’s job to make something good out of our efforts. The fate of the nations and world we inhabit does not rest on our shoulders.
Finally, it helps me to remember that I won’t necessarily know how or when God is going to make something good out of my efforts (or anyone else’s) in advance. I may not even live to see it happen. All I can do is make the most of life now.
I hope Merton’s words and my response to them are helpful to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. How are you feeling about life these days? Are there any wise words from the past that you turn to for hope and encouragement? What actions are you taking that you think could help change some aspect of life you don’t like?
Point taken. Merton was a remarkable person and his message as to process vs results is spot-on. Nevertheless, it galls me that anyone credits God with love. I think he's monstrous. I'm intrigued as to the reasons you left the ministry.
Your eloquent response merits publication.
As to the nature of God: my question to you is--Is s/he omnipotent? My bottom line is that if the answer is YES, s/he is monstrous for allowing evil. I don't buy the insipid free will bit--that aside, consider suffering due to "Acts of God," famine, illness, pain. How do you reconcile the preceding with a God of love--unless you believe s/he is NOT omnipotent.