Merton and Guilt
Posted by Mark Shaw on September 15, 2008
What guilt did you wake up with this morning? And what caused it? And why do you feel such guilt?
These questions prevail in our lives everyday as we struggle to understand the world of guilt. Thomas Merton recognized this and wrote about it in New Seeds of Contemplation: “I do not mean to encourage the guilt-ridden thinking that is always too glad to be ‘wrong’ in everything. This too is an evasion of responsibility, because every from of oversimplification tends to make decisions ultimately meaningless. We must try to accept ourselves, whether individually or collectively, not only as perfectly good or perfectly bad, but in our mysterious, unaccountable mixture of good and evil.”
Choice words to live you provided by the wisdom of Merton. Good “stop and think” words.
