In an age when totalitarianism has striven, in every way, to devaluate and degrade the human person, we hope it is right to demand a hearing for any and every sane reaction in favor of man's inalienable solitude and his interior freedom. The murderous din of our materialism cannot be allowed to silence the independent voices which will never cease to speak. It is all very well to insist that man is a "social animal" -- the fact is obvious enough. But that is no justification for making him a mere cog in a totalitarian machine -- or in a religious one either, for that matter.

In actual fact, society depends for its existence on the inviolable personal solitude of its members. Society, to merit its name, must be made up not of numbers, or mechanical units, but of persons. To be a person implies responsibility and freedom, and both these imply a certain interior solitude, a sense of personal integrity, a sense of one's own reality and one's ability to give himself to society -- or to refuse that gift.

When men are merely submerged in a mass of impersonal human beings pushed around by impersonal forces, they lose their true humanity, their integrity, their dignity, their ability to love, their capacity for self-determination. When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, the society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment, and hate.

No amount of technological progress will cure the hatred that eats away the vitals of materialistic society like a spiritual cancer. The only cure is, and must always be, spiritual. There is not much use talking to men about God and love if they are not able to listen. The ears with which one hears the message of the Gospel are hidden in man's heart, and those ears do not hear anything unless they are favored with a certain interior solitude and silence.

In other words, since faith is a matter of freedom and self-determination -- the free receiving of a freely given gift of grace -- man cannot assent to a spiritual message as long as his mind and heart are enslaved by automatism. He will always remain so enslaved as long as he is submerged in a mass of other automatons, without individuality and without their rightful integrity as persons.

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Concluding the foregoing passage of reflections, Thomas Merton says his 'Thoughts in Solitude' are not just a recipe for hermits, but have a bearing on the whole future of man and of his world, "and especially, of course, on the future of his religion."

Thomas Merton Center
Gethsemani Abbey
Merton Institute
Quiet Heroism

The greatest sermons ever preached have never been put into words. It can be a sermon of divine love portrayed in a simple act of kindness. It can be a flaming glory of unexpressed joy singing from a man's soul. It can be an understanding pat on the shoulder -- a smile -- a handclasp -- a thought. Here -- and theere -- sitting on a park bench, in a street car, a quiet building, or walking along a busy thoroughfare, or lonely street, a smile can be given, a word passed, or a little nod of appreciation communicated without a word. Invisible rays of living glory, sent out on a kindly thought of infinite love can fortify another with renewed courage and greater power. [Annalee Skarin ]

Gwyneth Paltrow

walks the walk