Merton's Palace of Nowhere

"James Finley is a superb mentor of spiritual transformation. Merton’s Palace of Nowhere contains a gold mine of wisdom. It is a book that will never leave my library. There are always more nuggets of spiritual growth in this book that wait for my discovery."

Joyce Rupp

Author of Boundless Compassion

May the clear and compelling message of this book encourage us all to follow along the authentic path of Christian discipleship.

Br. Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.

Abbey of Gethsemani

This now-classic text celebrates its fortieth anniversary of publication on the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death. In the intervening years, James Finley’s poetic and insightful exploration of the true self and Merton’s many contributions to the spiritual life has proven an invaluable resource and guidebook. With this new edition, more readers will have the opportunity to accompany Merton’s former novice in learning to see themselves, the world, and God with renewed vision.

Rev. Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M.

Author of The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton

Few people can write with as much authority on Thomas Merton as can his former student James Finley. Let Finley, in this new edition of his now-classic book, introduce you to one of the greatest spiritual masters of our age and the man whose writings changed many lives, including my own.

Rev. James Martin, S.J.

James Finley describes the spiritual life as the long and often arduous journey on which we slowly become detached from our false, illusory self—a self that is little more than the collective evaluations and affirmations of our surroundings—and are opened up to receive a new self that is participation in the life of God. In this journey that we all must make if we take our search for God seriously, Merton proves to be an excellent guide.

From the foreword to the first edition by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Preface to the 40th Anniversary Edition © 2017 by James Finley.

_____________________________

© 1978 by Ave Maria Press, Inc.

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Paperback: ISBN-13 978-0-87793-041-9

E-book: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-317-0

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Contents

Foreword by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Preface to the New Edition: Forty Years Later

Introduction: Upon Learning to See

1. The Foundation of the False Self

2. The True Self in the World

3. The True Self in Religious Searching

4. The Realization of the True Self

5. The Insight

Acknowledgments

Notes

Author Biography

Foreword

The only time I met Thomas Merton, I was struck by his utter earthiness. While on a retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, two students from the University of Notre Dame who had made an appointment to meet Merton at the lakeside asked me to join them. It was a very chatty encounter. We talked a little about abbots, a little about Camus and a little about writing. We drank beer, stared into the water, and let some time pass in silence—nothing very special, profound, or spiritual. In fact, it was a little disappointing. Maybe I had expected something unusual, something to talk about with others or to write home about. But Thomas Merton proved to be a very down-to-earth, healthy human being who was not going to perform to satisfy our curiosity. He was one of us.

Later, when I studied Merton’s books, taught a course about his life and works, and wrote a short introduction to his thought, I became very grateful for that one unspectacular encounter. I found that whenever I was tempted to let myself be carried away by lofty ideas or cloudy aspirations, I had only to remind myself of that one afternoon to bring myself back to earth. When my mind’s eye saw him again as that earthy man, dressed in sloppy blue jeans, loud, laughing, friendly and unpretentious, I would realize that Merton was and is no more than a window through whom we may perhaps catch a glimpse of the One who had called him to a life of prayer and solitude. Every attempt to put Merton on a pedestal would not only horrify Merton himself, but would also be in direct contrast to everything for which he stood. Merton expressed this unambiguously when, after 20 years of monastic life, he wrote: My monastery . . . is a place in which I disappear from the world as an object of interest in order to be everywhere in it by hiddenness and compassion (Preface to the Japanese edition of The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 11). To make Merton again an object of interest would be like robbing him posthumously of his vocation. It belonged to the essence of his vocation to let the old interested and interesting self die and to receive a new self which is hidden in God.

Why, then, another book on Merton? Not because Merton was so interesting and unusual, but because he was and still is an excellent guide in our search for God. James Finley, who lived with Merton for six years, has used Merton in the only way Merton was willing to be used: as a guide on our way to God. This book is, therefore, not primarily about Merton. Rather, it is a book about our spiritual journey, for which Merton offers ideas, suggestions and necessary encouragement, but in which he never becomes the object of interest himself.

Merton is a good guide. He felt our times well, and he was a perceptive observer of the many ups and downs in the spiritual struggles of contemporary men and women. With his remarkable literary talent, Merton was able to articulate his outer and inner worlds in such a way that his fellow travelers discovered in him an excellent interpreter of their own experiences and a good friend to help them find the way through often unknown territory.

In this book, a choice has been made. James Finley has chosen to lift out of Merton’s works the theme of our quest for a spiritual identity, a theme which can be found in the spiritual writings of all Christian centuries, but which has received a new emphasis in our days. James Finley describes the spiritual life as the long and often arduous journey on which we slowly become detached from our false, illusory self—a self that is little more than the collective evaluations and affirmations of our surroundings—and are opened up to receive a new self that is participation in the life of God. In this journey that we all must make if we take our search for God seriously, Merton proves to be an excellent guide not only because he knows the Christian tradition so well, but also because his study of Eastern Mysticism had given him words to articulate in a fresh, often playful and humorous, way this eternal quest for our true identity. James Finley has made full use of Merton’s rich knowledge of the West and the East and so has been able to give his study the same broad perspective which is so characteristic of Merton’s later work.

I hope that all those who read this very insightful book will be able to detach themselves more and more from the desire to know Merton and become more and more open to receive the knowledge of God’s presence in their lives. I am sure that this would please not only Thomas Merton, but James Finley as well.

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Preface to the New Edition: Forty Years Later

As I sit here wondering just what to say in this preface to the fortieth-anniversary edition of this book, I find myself inclined to share a vivid dream I had about five years after Merton had died. At the time I had this dream I had left the monastery and was in the midst of feeling stuck in my efforts to write this book. The stuck place went on for several months as a painful realization that, as much as I wanted to write this book I, perhaps, had to admit that I was not able to or least not yet able to write it. It was in the midst of this painful place of not knowing just what to do that I had this dream.

In the dream I was invited to a large university to present a formal paper on Thomas Merton’s principles of folk dancing. I think this theme came from some talks I had with Merton when I was at the monastery about his interest in the similarities he saw between the spirituality of the Quakers and monastic spirituality with its emphasis on finding God in the holiness of nature and in simplicity, humility and other qualities in which deep, transformative experiences of God’s presence unfold within us.

In the dream I entered the room where I was to present my formal paper on Merton’s principles of folk dancing. The room was a large, wood-paneled auditorium with no windows. I was surprised to see how many people had come to hear me present my paper. I was concerned by the large crowd because I am very introverted and at least at the time I had this dream found it very difficult to speak in public. I approached the lectern and, with my voice shaking from feeling so nervous about being in front of so many people, I began to read my paper. Just as I was getting into my paper all the lights went out in the room, which became pitch dark except for a small brass lamp on the lectern at which I was standing, reading my paper.

Then Thomas Merton appeared standing next to me on the stage. He was luminous so that everyone in the darkened room could see him standing there next to me. He had his hands folded on his chest and looked out at the people smiling with that look he had when he was feeling happy and amused about something. I can recall thinking in the dream, what are you doing here? You’re dead! But as I saw him standing there out of the corner of my eye I felt so nervous that I dared not look at him, for fear I would lose my place in my carefully prepared paper on his principles of folk dancing.

Then Merton began to do a folk dance. I could feel within me a wave of resentment in sensing everyone was so taken by seeing Merton dancing that no one was listening to my carefully prepared paper on his principles of folk dancing. Although the crowded auditorium was so dark I could not see the people gathered there, I was able to faintly see someone in the front row standing up to begin dancing with Merton. Then another person and another person began to stand and dance with Merton, then another and another. At the end of the dream everyone in the room was folk dancing with Merton in a communal sense of joy and abandonment, except for me, as I stood there determined not let all this contagious joy interrupt my dogged determination to continue reading my carefully prepared paper on Merton’s principles of folk dancing.

When I woke from the dream I sensed Merton was helping me to realize that I was trying to write my book on his insights into the true self in ways that had me in bondage to the confusion and fears of my false self.

As this dream sank into me, I was able to accept and be at peace in knowing that maybe I was not going to be able to write this book. And in learning to be at peace in accepting this might be so, the stuck place gave way and I was able to finish writing it.

I hope this dream helps you as it helped me to see the surprisingly intimate ways that Merton invites us to discover that God is all about us and within us, dancing away in and as the primordial rhythms of our breathing, in and as each new day giving way to the night that gives way to emergence of a new day. God is dancing away, inviting us. As Merton has it, We are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the wind, and join in the general Dance. Then, we unexpectedly awaken to our true self, one with God, in the midst of our fragility and all our wayward ways.

As I write this, I am seventy-three years old. I doubt that I will still be on the earthly plane ten years from now. But if I am, and if this book is still in print, and if I have my wits about me enough to write a preface to the fiftieth-anniversary edition, I wonder what I will say?

Introduction: Upon Learning to See

I

This book is a series of prayerful explorations into the spirituality of Thomas Merton. More specifically, it is an attempt to pass on a gift that I received during some six years as a monk at the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani. The daily monastic life and my personal contact with Father Louis (Merton’s monastic name) as my novice master were priceless graces which I feel moved to share with those who feel drawn to some degree of contemplative union with God.

It is they who seek union with God in