Thomas Merton—Evil and Why We Suffer

From Purified Soul Theodicy to Zen

Orberson

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781532639012
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Mystik

Thomas Merton is one of the most important spiritual voices of the last century. He has never been more relevant as new generations look to him for guidance in addressing some of life's biggest questions: how can we find God, how should we engage with other faiths, and how can we oppose violence and injustice? Looking carefully, one can find, tucked away in Merton's prodigious writings, his response to another timeless question: Why do we suffer? Why does an all-powerful and all loving God permit evil and suffering? By carefully examining all of Merton's work, we find that he repeatedly confronted this question throughout most of his adult life. Intriguingly, Merton's approach to this question changed dramatically a few years before he died in 1968. An examination of all aspects of his life yields evidence that Merton's immersion in Zen during this time contributed most to that change.

1

The Life of Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a wonderfully kaleidoscopic figure. Many fine biographies1 have been written in an attempt to convey a sense of the man. He was many things to different people: poet, spiritual writer, mystic, contemplative, priest and monk, peace activist, and interfaith pioneer. This chapter’s goal is to provide a biographical sketch of the whole man, and given the greater scope of this book, to pay special attention to the theme of suffering in his life. To be clear at the outset, I do not believe that Merton was an especially tragic figure or deserves to be pitied. Instead, I pay particular attention to the personal suffering in his life so that readers can better appreciate the later study of his thoughts about God’s role in human suffering. Here then is the extraordinary story of Thomas Merton.

Childhood

Thomas Merton was born during a snowstorm in Prades, France, on January 31, 1915. His parents had met in 1911 while enrolled as art students at the Tudor-Hart Academy in Paris. His father, Owen, was an artist and musician, and his mother, Ruth, was a dancer and painter.2 Within a year of Thomas’s birth the family had moved to America to be near Ruth’s family, and so that Owen could avoid conscription into the Great War. Ruth’s parents, Samuel “Pop” and Martha “Bonnemaman” Jenkins would play an important role in Merton’s upbringing. Owen and Ruth lead a largely hand-to-mouth existence while living in America. They had vowed not to accept any money from Ruth’s parents, except when they needed medicine for young Thomas.3 Owen was always able to keep the family afloat financially, if just barely, by working a series of odd jobs including as a church organist, as a piano player at a local theater, and as a landscaper.4

Young Thomas was observed to be a bright and curious child. His mother chronicled his every activity, even organizing these observations, and sending what she called Tom’s Book to Owen’s family in New Zealand. By all accounts Thomas was the center of his mother’s world, but that dynamic changed in November 1918 with the birth of his brother, John Paul. Ruth could be cold, and was not reluctant to discipline a headstrong Thomas. In his autobiography Merton recounts a time that he was sent to bed early, “for stubbornly spelling ‘which’ without the first ‘h’: ‘w-i-c-h.’ I remember brooding about this as an injustice. ‘What do they think I am, anyway?’ After all, I was still only five years old.”5 However, as biographer Michael Mott points out, after the birth of his brother, “love, with both encouragement and correction, had been replaced by cold, intellectual criticism.”6

Merton’s young life was about to face a major crisis when his mother discovered she had stomach cancer. He never knew exactly how long she struggled with her diagnosis while still living at home, but when she was finally admitted to a nearby hospital, the family moved in with Ruth’s parents in Douglaston, New York. Thomas would never see his mother again. He was not allowed to see his mother in the hospital, and, sadly, Merton always believed that this was at his mother’s request. Although Merton knew his mother was sick in the hospital, the six-year-old was not aware how dire the situation actually was until his father handed him a letter from his mother. This note informed the young boy about the grim news. As Merton recalled,

Then one day Father gave me a note to read. I was very surprised. It was for me personally, and it was in my mother’s handwriting. I don’t think she had ever written to me before—there had never been any occasion for it. Then I understood what was happening, although, as I remember, the language of the letter was confusing to me. Nevertheless, one thing was quite evident. My mother was informing me, by mail, that she was about to die, and would never see me again.7

Sadly, for the rest of his life Merton would think that his mother had decided to deliver this news in a letter rather than in person. It is now known that Bellevue Hospital had a policy that prevented children from visiting the general wards, and this was Ruth’s only way to communicate with her son.8 Ruth died October 3, 1921. Merton would reflect on this, and other early childhood memories, with the lingering belief that his mother was more cerebral, and less caring and loving, as a parent.9

Within a year of Ruth’s death Owen decided he needed to make a change and rededicate himself to his painting. He made the decision to move to Bermuda, and took Thomas with him, leaving his other son, John Paul, in the care of Ruth’s parents in New York. Thomas, now age seven, and his father left for Bermuda in the fall of 1922. While there, Owen met aspiring novelist Evelyn Scott. The two fell in love, despite the fact that Evelyn was married, and they had a tempestuous relationship. Young Thomas did not care for Evelyn at all, and was not bashful in voicing his displeasure to the couple. During this time Owen wrote to a friend stating that “Tom’s jealousy and irreconcilableness are perfectly enormous.”10 It appears there was no love lost from Evelyn either. In fact, she confided to a friend that, “Tom is a morbid and possessive kid and Owen is made morbid about Tom through various things that occurred in connection with Ruth. Tom is, and will be until he is big enough to be set adrift a constant obstacle to piece [sic] of mind.”11 This period was made even more unsettling for Thomas by the fact that Owen would occasionally leave young Thomas with friends so that he could go on trips to sell his art.12

After a couple years in Bermuda, the father and son returned to America so that Owen could exhibit and sell some of his paintings. Flush with money, Owen made plans to return to France to resume his painting with old friends. This time, the eight-year-old Thomas would stay in America with his maternal grandparents, Pop and Bonnemaman. While he was happy to reunite with his grandparents and brother, he missed his father and felt abandoned during this time. Thomas was elated when in July 1925 his father returned to America to fetch him and take him back to France. Many years later Merton looked back at this, describing, “I realized today after mass what a desperate, despairing childhood I had. Around the age of 7-9-10, when mother was dead and father was in France and Algeria. How much it meant when he came to take me to France. It really saved me.”13 While Thomas was reunited with...