Since I am a [human being], my destiny depends on my human behavior: that is to say, upon my decisions. I must first of all appreciate this fact, and weigh the risks and difficulties it entails. I must, therefore, know myself, and know both the good and the evil that are in me. It will not do to know only one and not the other: only the good, or only the evil. I must then be able to love the life God has given me, living it fully and fruitfully, and making good use even of the evil that is in [the life God has given me]. Why should I love an ideal good in such a way that my life becomes more deeply embedded in misery and evil?
To live well myself is my first and essential contribution to the well being of all mankind and to the fulfillment of [humanity’s] collective destiny. If I do not live happily myself how can I help anyone else to be happy, or free, or wise? . . .
To live well myself means for me to know and appreciate something of the secret, the mystery in myself: that which is incommunicable, which is at once myself and not myself, at once in me and above me. From this sanctuary [of the mystery in myself], I must seek humbly and patiently to ward off the intrusions of violence and self-assertion. . . . .
If I can understand something of myself and something of others, I can begin to share the work of building the foundations for spiritual unity. But first we must work together at dissipating the more absurd fictions that make unity impossible.
Thomas Merton, OCSO
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pp. 81-82
