Years ago, at the height of my activist years, on the verge of a second or third burnout, I stumbled across a quote from that amazing, broken, paradox-filled Trappist monk, hipster, vow-breaking, activist, poet and monastic – Father Louis – known more popularly as Thomas Merton.

This is the quote:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

I had a friend, not particularly churchy or even Christian, who read that quote, posted on a scrap of paper on my fridge, who cried when she did.

She’d been there too.

I grew up as a child of a self-described ‘capitalist’; a workaholic who was, himself, an adult child of an alcoholic. I didn’t see him much.

I learned the protestant work ethic early.

At the same time, I was forged in the religious fires of Pentecostal holiness, quite certain that my salvation would be earned by the striving to achieve my own sanctified holiness – a misinterpretation of the grace of Methodist holiness, if you ask me (but that’s a whole other post).

At first, as a child, it was all about purity, Christian ‘blue laws’, abstinence, separation from the world, secular vs. sacred, no sex, drugs or rock and roll – and a supposed ‘enemy’ in whoever the enemy was at that particular time (Islam? The ‘New Age’ movement? Secularism?) – and the like.

When I later deconstructed that form of fundamentalism, I bounced right into it’s flipside; left-wing activism, veganism, busyness, activity. A purity of another kind. Again, there were enemies to be had; cops, cars, corporations, capitalists – to name of few.

In both sides of that coin, I was certain I could earn my redemption by by making myself better – and be a part of making the world a better place. I was sure I would be better than the ‘other’; and that my activism – be it from the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ would earn me God’s (or whatever or whoever my god was at any given time’s) favour.

Some days, I still struggle with doing too much.

I still struggle with saving the world.

I still struggle with grace and mercy.

I told myself I’d be more present to my kids than my workaholic dad, in his busyness was to me. And, you know, I think I’ve done OK, in my own broken way. And also messed a lot up.

And day after day, in my own broken, paradox-filled and amazing life, I find I need to return to the wisdom of Fr. Louis – to that quote, which by God’s grace, really did save my life.

Thanks Thomas Merton, Fr. Louis, OCSO (Trappist) – 1915-1968.