I like to jump around on other people’s posts on facebook. Going down the rabbit holes, or finding the source of one’s inspiration is very telling of the spirituality they speak of. For instance I bounced around to a site that had the title:

Theological/philosophical/cultural/spiritual thoughts about God and the Real Jesus.

Oh,  this person has found the Real Jesus. Let’s see!  I had only to scroll down about 7-8 articles to find what he wrote:

Thomas Merton has written: “Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in the interior life as one sometimes thinks. When you reread your journal you find out that your newest discovery is something you found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas, the same experiences.” (Merton, Thomas (2007).

Growing deeper and deeper into Christ and His love is to discover new things about the same thing. I think that if you and I were more mastered by Christ’s love it would be life overwhelming, life overflowing.

Today stick to the basics, the most foundational of which is: Love.

Ah….Thomas Merton…. So let’s take a good look at Merton. Lighthouse Trails Research has this good article about him titled:

Thomas Merton – Contemplative, Mystic, Panentheist.

Article HERE

Here are a couple of quotes from Thomas Merton.

“It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, … now I realize what we all are …. If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are …I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other … At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth … This little point …is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody.”

FROM A TIME OF DEPARTING BY RAY YUNGEN (quoting Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1989 edition, 157-158)

“I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity … I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.”

(David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West” (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969)

There is no way I can trust this person’s claim that they know the real Jesus when they are following false teachings.

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oTohomas Merton – Contemplative, Mystic, Panentheist Thomas Merton – Contemplative, Mystic, Panentheist