Thomas Merton (1915â1968), American monk and author, was also a photographer, an observer of the inner nature of life as seen with the eyes of the heart. As one of Mertonâs friends, a photographer, John Howard Griffin, writes, âMertonâs approach to photography, and one of the reasons his photography is truly personal, lay in his use of his lenses primarily as contemplative instrumentsâ (from John Howard Griffin & Thomas Merton, âA Hidden Wholeness: the Visual World of Thomas Mertonâ, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 3). Mertonâs photography sought to capture the âplay of light, the ambience, and the inner life of the things he photographedâ (Griffin, 4). Merton loved the silence surrounding the art of contemplative photography. âHe struggled toward an expression of silence through the visual image, in photographs that communicated the essence of silence without any implied soundsâ (Griffin, 4). In selecting images, Merton cared little for traditional aspects of photography such as photo journalism, composition or capturing a moment of significant time. âHe selected only the frames that expressed his contemplative vision....He worked for photographic images which, when viewed without haste or pressure, might accomplish the slow work of communicating âa hidden wholenessââ (Griffin, 4). Hereâs Merton in his own words:
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, âNatura naturansâ. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and of joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being ⦠(Thomas Merton, âHagia Sophiaâ)
Consider one form of photography as an invitation into the inner landscape of the soul to gaze upon the âunseen roots of all created beingâ. One of the gifts a contemplative photographer offers is to see the illumination within the frame, using the camera lens âprimarily as a contemplative instrumentâ. Much as icons and rose windows have been used within ancient church buildings (including for the current challenge "churches"), contemplative photography can become a way to see into the hidden wholeness of things. To accomplish this does not come naturally to humans, but comes to us as a gift, much like waiting for the moment of illumination to fill a scene before clicking the shutter. We invite you to come visit a contemplative photography blog (see Cannon Beach Log), including essays on the soul by  charliebakerand nature photographs by zoomdak.
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