The subtitle of this article in Parabola is: Prayer as Creativity and Play. The writer Brother Paul Quenon is a Cistercian monk. Some quotes from this excellent article:
"Thomas Merton, in his latter days, was concerned that monks of the future would have identity crises because the monastic life seems so useless. We serve no obvious purpose and cannot be explained in terms of modern society where everyone serves a purpose, has some function, and can show a product to prove it. People can be justified in the eyes of society when they have something to show for themselves....
However, contemplation is not a commodity, nor is love. It is a reality that exists for its own sake, not for the sake of an impression it may make. ... Prayer might be compared to art and a life of art - a very pure art for the sake of making art. ... To engage in a song alone in the woods, or to play a flute on a mountainside, has no end other than itself. It might be for practice, for improvement of skill, discipline. It might be for enjoyment. Or it might be for worship done to honor beauty in the presence of God, done as a pure act of love for joy, form and beauty in the universe.
Matthew Kelty, a monk of Gethsemani, died at the age of ninety-five... He has expressed this notion of art, and implicitly the notion of prayer, in his book Flute Solo, which begins:
"I am not a flutist, yet I have a flute and I play it, for no purpose and for no ears save God's and my own. That being so, there is no need of artistry or skill and I can sing my tune without fear of correction or disapproval, let alone of another showing me how it should be done. ... I don't want to learn to play the flute; I prefer it this way. Beyond my incapacity to get far, there is the fear of my small joy being driven away by concern for doing it well and turning a natural act into a performance."
Prayer, like great art, has transcendent value in itself - even more so. Contemplation is a mind and heart engaged in the highest potential they were created for. ... What some take for absurdity and vanity, monks take for grace and a pure act of play. ... A child understands this. Commercialized play has lost its true nature and has been debased into a serious business of drawing crowds and charging tickets. Its purpose is outside of itself. ...
What then is the right way of living? We might find the answer to that question Posed by Plato by turning to Thomas Merton at the end of "The General Dance" in New Seeds of Contemplation:
"What is serious to men is often trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as "play" is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing..."
