One of my favorite contemplative, spiritual blogs is The Website of Unknowing. The following “Quote for the Day” post reminds us that contemplation without action is selfish (faith without works?).
Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.
Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation
