“…. the true philosopher and the true poet become what they are when they “go beyond” philosophy and poetry, and cease to “be philosophers” or to “be poets.” It is at that point that their whole lives become philosophy and poetry—in other words, there is no longer any philosophy or any poetry separable from the unity of their existence. Philosophy and poetry have disappeared. The ordinary acts of everyday life—eating, sleeping, walking, etc., become philosophical acts which grasp the ultimate principles of life in life itself and not in abstraction.

One may add that this unification of life and worship sometimes appears to lack a specifically religious quality. In reality it is a perfection of the religious life, and not indifference or doubt. It is those who doubt who need the constant expression of religious sentiments and the reiteration of formulas and rites. (Since we all doubt, we all need religion / Christ.) Yet if in resisting doubt we convince ourselves that we truly “know God” we have lost touch with reality, for as St. Thomas said: “The extreme of human knowledge of God is to know that we do not know God.”

— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander