I wish I could give those who believe in God some kind of an idea of the state of a soul like mine was in then. But it is impossible to do it in sober, straight, measured, prose terms. And, in a sense, image and analog}’ would be even more misleading, by the very fact that they would have life in them, and convey the notion of some real entity, some kind of energy, some sort of activity. But my soul was simply dead. It was a blank, a nothingness. It was empty, it was a kind of a spiritual vacuum, as far as the supernatural order was concerned. Even its natural faculties were shrivelled husks of what they ought to have been.
A soul is an immaterial thing. It is a principle of activity, it is an “act,” a “form,” an energizing principle. It is the life of the body, and it must also have a life of its own. But the life of the soul does not inhere in any physical, material subject. So to compare a soul without grace to a corpse without life is only a metaphor. But it is very true.
St. Teresa had a vision of hell. She saw herself confined in a narrow hole in a burning wall. The vision terrified her above all with the sense of the appalling stress of this confinement and heat. All this is symbolic, of course. But a poetic grasp of the meaning of the symbol should convey something of the experience of a soul which is reduced to an almost infinite limit of helplessness and frustration by the fact of dying in sin, and thus being eternally separated from the principle of all vital activity which, for the soul in its own proper order, means intellection and love.
But I now lay on this bed, full of gangrene, and my soul was rotten with the corruption of my sins. And I did not even care whether I died or lived.
The worst thing that can happen to anyone in this life is to lose all sense of these realities. The worst thing that had ever happened to me was this consummation of my sins in abominable coldness and indifference, even in the presence of death.
What is more, there was nothing I could do for myself! There was absolutely no means, no natural means within reach, for getting out of that state. Only God could help me. Who prayed for me? One day I shall know. But in the economy of God’s love, it is through the prayers of other men that these graces are given. It was through the prayers of someone who loved God that I was one day, to be delivered out of that hell where I was already confined without knowing it.
I really love the term "the economy of God's love" for some reason. The unending bounty of God's grace saves Merton from death of the body and soul. While he lies in bed, incapacitated by illness--physical and spiritual--he is saved through the intercession of prayer. Yet he has no idea who's praying for him. He simply knows that, had it been left up to him, he would have gone to sleep and never woken up. And he didn't care.
Merton identifies this indifference as being in a state of sin. Perhaps he's right. Or perhaps, after losing both of his parents and grappling with a painful adolescence, he's clinically depressed. I know that, as a teenager, I wrestled with that particular brand of darkness on many occasions. In fact, the summer after I graduated from high school, I lost a mentor to whom I was quite close, and I spent most of that June, July, and August sitting in my dark bedroom, unable to move. I don't think I was in a state of sin, but I certainly didn't care whether I lived or died.
Writer William Styron, in his memoir Darkness Visible, says, "Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self—to the mediating intellect—as to verge close to being beyond description.” There it us. Unless you've experienced depression, there's really no way to fully understand it.
Yet, I can tell you what depression isn't. It isn't a state of sin. Or a phase you grow out of or wake up from. It's not a matter of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Or letting go and letting God. It's not easy, in any way, and there's no magic pill that cures you.
That being said, I never underestimate the power of grace and prayer. It is a powerful thing to lift someone up to God. I do it on a daily basis. Because I know there are things I just can't control or fix. Not from lack of trying, but from trying and failing, over and over and over. Then, after multiple failures, I step aside and let my Higher Power take over.
This evening, I was standing in my backyard near dusk. My puppy was wandering around my feet, sniffing and barking. After a few minutes, I noticed that the air around me was swarmed with tiny clouds of insects. It was easy to overlook them, they were so masked by deep summer green. I had to unfocus my eyes, look at the air without looking at the air. Then they became visible. An entire galaxy of insect life, moving like dust in motes of sunshine.
That is sort of the way I imagine God's grace. All around us, alive and swarming. We just choose to focus on the forest instead of the trees. Or we can't focus on the trees or forest at all, because our darkness is too dark. Our hole, too deep.
Like Merton, though, I know that I have been saved by the economy of God's love on many occasions. I was probably saved by it tonight. Will probably be saved by it tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
Saint Marty just needs to unfocus his eyes, look without looking, at all the grace swarming around him. And then give thanks.
I really love the term "the economy of God's love" for some reason. The unending bounty of God's grace saves Merton from death of the body and soul. While he lies in bed, incapacitated by illness--physical and spiritual--he is saved through the intercession of prayer. Yet he has no idea who's praying for him. He simply knows that, had it been left up to him, he would have gone to sleep and never woken up. And he didn't care.
Merton identifies this indifference as being in a state of sin. Perhaps he's right. Or perhaps, after losing both of his parents and grappling with a painful adolescence, he's clinically depressed. I know that, as a teenager, I wrestled with that particular brand of darkness on many occasions. In fact, the summer after I graduated from high school, I lost a mentor to whom I was quite close, and I spent most of that June, July, and August sitting in my dark bedroom, unable to move. I don't think I was in a state of sin, but I certainly didn't care whether I lived or died.
Writer William Styron, in his memoir Darkness Visible, says, "Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self—to the mediating intellect—as to verge close to being beyond description.” There it us. Unless you've experienced depression, there's really no way to fully understand it.
Yet, I can tell you what depression isn't. It isn't a state of sin. Or a phase you grow out of or wake up from. It's not a matter of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Or letting go and letting God. It's not easy, in any way, and there's no magic pill that cures you.
That being said, I never underestimate the power of grace and prayer. It is a powerful thing to lift someone up to God. I do it on a daily basis. Because I know there are things I just can't control or fix. Not from lack of trying, but from trying and failing, over and over and over. Then, after multiple failures, I step aside and let my Higher Power take over.
This evening, I was standing in my backyard near dusk. My puppy was wandering around my feet, sniffing and barking. After a few minutes, I noticed that the air around me was swarmed with tiny clouds of insects. It was easy to overlook them, they were so masked by deep summer green. I had to unfocus my eyes, look at the air without looking at the air. Then they became visible. An entire galaxy of insect life, moving like dust in motes of sunshine.
That is sort of the way I imagine God's grace. All around us, alive and swarming. We just choose to focus on the forest instead of the trees. Or we can't focus on the trees or forest at all, because our darkness is too dark. Our hole, too deep.
Like Merton, though, I know that I have been saved by the economy of God's love on many occasions. I was probably saved by it tonight. Will probably be saved by it tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
Saint Marty just needs to unfocus his eyes, look without looking, at all the grace swarming around him. And then give thanks.
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