Note to reader – This is a new Friday blog feature I’m trying out that may or may not have anything to do with writing or marketing, but does have something to do with serious questions that linger in our minds, ones that gently (or not so gently) ask for our attention. I call it Wandering and Wondering, and hope you’ll join the conversation. I have more questions than answers, but perhaps by wandering and wondering together we’ll learn something new and unexpected.
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Mall of America

Last week I was reading Thomas Merton, and when I came across this passage, it stopped me dead in my tracks.

“‘I will not make you such rich men as have need of many things,’ said Philoxenos (putting the words on the lips of Christ), ‘but I will make you true rich men who have need of nothing. Since it is not he who has many possessions that is rich, but he who has no needs.’ Obviously, we shall always have some needs. But only he who has the simplest and most natural needs can be considered to be without needs, since the only needs he has are real ones, and the real ones are not hard to fulfill if one is a free man!” (Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable, 1966)

There’s a strong statement against Western-style materialism if ever there was one. On the one hand, it’s easy to see the truth of these words. Doesn’t it seem the more you have, the more you want? I know, we probably all know, successful business people who appear to have everything but seem spiritually exhausted, fed up with the daily grind.

And yet.

How many of us has the courage of Thomas Merton, who left the world to live in solitude, leaving behind not only his possessions, but his family, his friends, his reputation, his promising career, and his very identity? Not me. The idea of living without needs is appealing in the abstract, but when push comes to shove, I don’t want to give up my GPS, let alone my car. If I were convinced having no needs would make me free, truly and completely free, my car would be gone in a flash, along with everything else.

Rationalizations come easy. I tell myself the whole world couldn’t live the way Merton did. It’s all a matter of degree, of balance, of keeping things in proportion. But how much is enough? How do you know when you have enough “things”? And how can you tell the difference between what you really need and what you think you need? Like I said, I have lots of questions, but not many answers.

Are material needs a prison? Have you ever felt imprisoned by your own needs? I sometimes do.
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*Thomas Merton started out as an intellectually gifted man of letters, but abruptly left the New York City literary scene to become a Trappist monk in Kentucky. He became one of the most influential Catholic writers of the 20th century. He wrote about many things — spiritual growth, the spiritual condition of modern man, contemplative prayer among others. He also had a great interest in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. Those traditions colored his ideas and his writings helped bridge the gap between East and West.

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