From “A Thomas Merton Reader,” edited by Thomas P. McDonnell.
Background – Thomas Merton had just arrived at Gethsemane, the Trappist monetary in Kentucky, as a postulant.

“In any case, the Father Abbott turned to us with just as much ease and facility as if he had nothing else whatever to do but to give the first words of advise to two postulants leaving the world to become Trappists.
“‘Each one of you,’ he said, ‘will make the community either better or worse. Everything you do will have an influence upon others. It can be a good influence or a bad one. It all depends on you. Our Lord will never refuse you grace…'” (p. 143)

In all of our communities, we must make a decision of whether we will be a good influence or a bad one, whether we will make the place we find ourselves better or worse. Our dispositions, our attitude, our words along with our actions will all contribute to whether we are a “smell of life” or a “smell of death.”
Which will it be? In all of our politicking, moralizing, and pontificating, what will it be? Are we an element that uplifts and encourages or an element that speeds the decent into banality, superficiality, hypocrisy, and idiocy?
Despite our person foibles and problems, we still have the ability to decide! Which will it be? How will we be known?