The Merton Prayer An Exercise in Authenticity

Steven A. Denny is a scholar, an attorney, a certified mediator, and an ordained clergyman, originally from Kentucky, who now lives in Oak Park, Illinois. He and his wife Miran have five adult children. Denny runs a private law firm whose motto is "Striving for Justice in an Imperfect World." He knows Hebrew and several other Middle-Eastern languages, and his maternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Russia. Denny has spent considerable time at the Our Lady of Gethsemani Trappist monastery in Kentucky and credits The Merton Prayer for getting him through very aggressive cancer several years ago. This is his first book.

Mr. Denny has the following academic degrees: MA in Semitic Languages from Lincoln Christian Seminary, MA in Ancient History from Illinois State University, PhD (Candidacy) in Northwest Semitic Philology from the University of Chicago, and JD from The University of Illinois/John Marshall Law School. He was a pastor for 10 years, Instructor of New Testament Greek for 4 years, Ombudsman at a major Chicago hospital for 6 years, and has been a plaintiff's trial attorney for 36 years. Mr. Denny was President of the Christian Legal Society Northern Illinois Chapter for 6 years and preached at the Cook County Jail for 15 years. He founded a Chicago men's book club which is now 20 years old having read 80 books. Hobbies include: an incurable Kentucky Wildcat basketball fan, Bob Dylan music, travel, reading, and the Alaskan Iditarod Dog Sled Race. He is a member of the International Thomas Merton Society.

From the author:

My opposing counsel surprised me by asking if I wanted to ride back with him to my downtown Chicago law office. We had chatted amicably at a couple of other depositions but had never spoken socially outside of the courtroom or deposition room. 

The reason for his unexpected request became apparent quickly enough. "Steven, I noticed in your briefcase a book by Thomas Merton. Are you by chance aware of his 'I don't know where I'm going' prayer?" Then, in a way that communicated rare and authentic vulnerability, he said, "This prayer has saved my life, over and over. It has gotten me through a divorce, drug addiction, suicidal thoughts, deaths of loved ones, and career-ending mistakes. I could not have survived without this prayer in my life."

I told him, "Yes, I know The Merton Prayer well; it has also been a huge part of my ongoing connection with God." That lawyer and I became friends and have shared many other encounters about our Christian journeys, but there has never been another conversation I have had with anyone about anything that has changed my life like this one did.

I believe that conversation, in 2014, gave birth to the ideas for this book. The Merton Prayer, which has meant so much to me, has obviously helped countless others in their walk with God. This is a book for all Christ-followers, of any and all "flavors of Christendom,"  and I have no theological bones to pick with anyone in these pages, so please proceed knowing that the only goal is to share my thoughts on this life-changing and life-enhancing prayer, known worldwide as "The Merton Prayer." 

Sometime in the 1990s, when I first read this prayer, it was as if I had come home to a place where I met God and God met me. It felt like an old comfortable quilt made by my grandma, which a child could cuddle in on rainy cold days in front of a crackling fire--perhaps while drinking hot chocolate. It also felt like a magnet that drew me to God and would not let me go. No matter what my circumstances of life were at the time, this prayer gave me strength, which in turn led to real peace and filled me with confidence that God was "ever with me" and indeed would "never leave me to face my perils alone." 
    
So how did a Protestant-Evangelical-Christian, former clergyman-turned-trial-attorney in Chicago, ever find "I don't know where I'm going," a prayer written by a famous yet seemingly unapproachable (to me) Catholic Trappist monk from Kentucky? How did it become my own immersive exercise in authenticity? It is from Merton's book Thoughts in Solitude,  and I confess that when I got to that one-page prayer in 1990, I stopped reading, and honestly, do not believe that I have ever read the remainder of that book, though I have devoured many other books written by Merton. I simply could not and cannot get past the prayer.

Since that first encounter, the words of The Merton Prayer have been with me every single day. I soon came to have it memorized and realized that I could not go through a day without meditating on it. I say it to myself on my way to work; I say it out loud in the health club steam room (if nobody else is present!); I talk about it so often in my small accountability men's group that the others often say, "Look out, here comes Merton again!" I pray the prayer at the beginning of my daily "quiet time"; phrases from it end up attached to my "breath prayers" (short prayers uttered with inhalation and exhalation) as I walk to and from courtrooms. A copy is posted by my computer in my office. The Merton Prayer quickly became an integral part of my inner being. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever think that it would save my life. But it did. And that is what this book is about.  
 
Scripture, from the Gospels, a Psalm, Paul's words, or one of Solomon's proverbs, constantly spring out to me and often elucidate and confirm phrases from The Merton Prayer. My seminary Professor of Hebrew, John Ralls, told a story of a Talmudic rabbi whose students asked him, "Rabbi, how best does one study Torah?" The rabbi responded, "Turn it, turn it, turn it. It's all there." That's how I feel about Merton's prayer.