The shadowed lands of the heart...

The basic and most fundamental problem of the spiritual life is this acceptance of our hidden and dark self, with which we tend to identify all the evil that is in us. We must learn by discernment to separate the evil growth of our actions from the good ground of the soul. And we must prepare that ground so that a new life can grow up from it within us, beyond our knowledge and beyond our conscious control. The sacred attitude is, then, one of reverence, awe and silence before the mystery that begins to take place within us when we become aware of our innermost self. In silence, hope, expectation, and unknowing, the man of faith abandons himself to the divine will: not as an arbitrary and magic power whose decrees must be spelled out from cryptic ciphers, but as to the stream of reality and life itself. The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself.

Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. William H. Shannon, editor (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003): p. 55

I mentioned earlier today "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6.17) and it is the work of this sword the Merton seems to me to be describing here. Merton's language may seem unfamiliar to some who are more used to studying the Bible than psychology, but I am reminded strongly of the words of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews:

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4.12)

To learn to exercise that discernment of which Merton writes is one of the most difficult things we can face as Christians. We so easily identify the hidden part of ourselves as the source of "all the evil that is in us" - and yet there is a part of ourselves which is forever unknowable, because it is the place where God touches us. To identify this with the evil that is part of the fallen human condition is so grave an error that it reminds me of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Luke 12.10). (If you think my words are extreme, consider for a moment the fact that some conservatives consider speaking in tongues to be demonic.)

It is only in silence that we can allow God to reach out to the shadowed lands of the heart; and yet it must be a silence lit by a profound acquaintance with Scripture (1 John 4.1-3). By itself, Bible study will never more than a dry and legalistic accumulation of knowledge; by itself, silence can be a perilous, haunted desert. Only when the word and Spirit are one (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 1.5-6) is silence truly prayer - which is why a prayer like the Jesus Prayer, or the Holy Rosary, deeply rooted in Scripture, yet prayed as a doorway to silence, is such a powerful means of grace.