It seems that Merton’s revelation that he is not a better man for owning a technological convenience is an awareness we must grow in ourselves.
It is a similar awareness that we are not better men for having man-made conveniences such as religion to unfold the mysteries of the world. I’ll explain:

As part of personal responsibility, we must chop wood. Chopping for ourselves develops awareness of our intentions for the tools we have-meaning, we’re honest with ourselves and acknowledge what our minds are thinking.
To choose this awareness is self-approaching, yes, but rewarding, for practicing this inward focus quiets the turmoil of our separated world and relieves the need to figure out “God”, the past, or the hyperactive changes in our futures. If we feel no compulsion to keep up with our “fossil fuel culture”, we rid ourselves of accompanying anxiety in exchange for what’s been available to us all along: peace, clarity, and freedom.

The nail’s head is “returning to the silence in order to purify our spirits”. Reflecting allows us to unscramble the clutter in our heads and return to our center, evaluating our intentions, and controlling our minds so they work as the tools they are designed to be.
As with all man-made tools, they have their limitations. It is our choice to use them well, for to rely on them for mere ease and comfort only builds a dependence on something separate from our own responsibility–and to continue in that reliance does not make us man, but yet another machine.

Apologies if I’ve digressed. :) My best to all!

In his dialogue with people of other faiths, it seems to me that Merton did not diminish his faith as simply a ‘choice’ among ‘choices’. I am an ‘immigrant’, and yet I teach technology to the ‘natives’ Kate Clancy speaks about. Daily I see that this technology is viewed by them as a birthright that elevates them as smarter, more special, yes, enlightened. But, sadly it’s only an enlightenment of relativism.

I wonder if those ‘natives’ who were able to actually possess and read the first printed Bible felt so much more enlightened than those ‘immigrants’ who relied on the spoken word?

FYI, Clancy, please do some research. Your quote attributed to Thomas Berry is at least misleading. He can alter it all he chooses and weave in some fuzzy stuff about the sacred earth, but the
‘parent’ quote comes from an ‘immigrant’, a father of the Church, St. Augustine, “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it.” (354-430). I believe he was talking about “I AM”, not mother earth, nor enlightened spiritual gymnastics. I believe he was pointing to Jesus, who said, “You are looking at Him.”

I’m not judging Clancy, here. I don’t know her at all. I just couldn’t figure out where she was going with her article. It seems to me that so many people leave the Church with the naïve belief they will discover some freedom and fulfillment the Church has not yet found. Rules and beliefs may be poorly presented, and poorly understood, but communion with God is impossible without them. This generation may not be fighting about which is the true God, but it seems to be fighting to assert there is no God and certainly no Church – a recipe not for freedom, but for nihilism.

I thank God for the rules and regulations. They remind me I can’t possibly fulfill them on my own, that I’m not the center of all things, that I don’t know it all, that in fact, I know very little and am powerless without God. Gadgets can’t do that, nor can yoga; people living in communion, rubbing shoulders and arguing, working, demanding, forgiving, sharing a meal, living with each other’s sins and virtues, and, yes, the contemplation of it all – this is what leads to enlightenment. Yoga and meditation can be spiritual practices, but they are not “spiritual principles.” Loving God with one’s whole being and one’s neighbor as oneself are spiritual principles. One will never find God sitting on a yoga mat, but in Jesus God has become flesh. It is in Christ’s body, the Church, with all its inconvenience and problems, that we encounter the living God.