Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  I hope the affair is over, and it seems to me I have done the best I could to repair my mistakes.

  August 15, 1963

  Cool. Cows lowing in the mist. Long but rich night office. Maria optimam partem elegit. [Mary has chosen the better part.] Love for the great responsories.

  A seventeenth-century Carmelite attacked [Jean] Mabillon, [Thierry] Ruinart, etc. for their criterion of historical judgment.4 They asserted that long familiarity with charters and manuscripts gave one a quasi-instinctive “taste” by which one could detect fabrications and falsifications. This, said the critic, was pure subjectivism. And the “objectivity” to which he appealed was that of accepted norms. What had always been regarded as genuine was genuine, because this was the tradition of the church and the work of God. So too the appeal to “law” sometimes.

  Yet who can guarantee that he has developed the right “instinctive” taste for the real? So the accepted view cannot be disregarded. But it need not be blindly received as final.

  August 16, 1963

  A lovely cool, dazzling bright afternoon yesterday. Blue sky, clouds, silence, and the immense sunlit sweep of St. Malachy’s field. I found a mossy turf under pines in that little island of woods, along which the Lespedeza hedge we planted ten or fifteen years ago is still growing. And yesterday it was blooming with delicate, heather-like purple blossoms and bees were busy in them.

  An entirely beautiful, transfigured moment of love for God and the need for complete confidence in Him in everything, without reserve, even when almost nothing can be understood. A sense of the continuity of grace in my life and an equal sense of the stupidity and baseness of the infidelities which have threatened to break that continuity. How can I be so cheap and foolish as to trifle with anything so precious? The answer is that I grow dull and stupid and turn in false directions, without light, very often without interest and without real desire, out of a kind of boredom and animal folly, caught in some idiot social situation. It is usually a matter of senseless talking, senseless conduct and vain behavior, coming from my shyness and desperation at being in a bind I cannot cope with–and if there is drink handy I drink it, and talk more foolishly. This of course is rare–I was thinking of visits of Father John of the Cross [Wasserman]’s people (other side of the field) when I was not true to myself. With him I suppose I rarely was. And now where is he?

  August 17, 1963

  [Romano] Guardini, speaking of [Jean Pierre de] Caussade, praises his clarity and adds that he is sometimes too clear–so clear as to endanger our religious integrity by short circuiting it. For his writings presuppose the order of convent life a bit.

  “On ne prend même pas en consideration la possibilité que cet ordre puisse être lui-même en désordre, et qu’il puisse résulter de là un conflit que le concept d’obéissance ne suffit plus à régler.” [“We do not even take into consideration the possibility that order could itself be in disorder, and that it could result in a conflict here in which the concept of obedience is no longer sufficient to apply.”]

  This is partly true. But Caussade does not have recourse only to obedience, and abandonment is not only more all-embracing but also can be more positive and creative than obedience. Obedience–acceptance of order and system. Abandonment–beyond system–direct contact with divine freedom.

  “La solitude d’un chrétien dans un monde détaché de l’ordre chrétien est unfait nouveau et décisifdont on ne rend pas suffisament compte, si l’on se contente de con-sidérer ce monde comme étant dans l’erreur et d’ériger comme ideal l’état intérieur…” [“The solitude of a Christian in a world detached from Christian order is a new and decisive reality to which we do not pay sufficient attention, if we are content to consider this world as being in error and to erect as ideal the interior state…”] In this context Caussade assumes the greatest importance. Frees man from dependence on a structure which is no longer there–to be a Christian anyway.

  The responsibility of the individual called by what does not yet exist and called to help it exist in, through, and by a present dislocation of Christian life!!

  August 20, 1963

  Feast of the enigmatic Saint Bernard–whom we “know” so well that we do not know him at all. That is, in the Order we are satisfied with a very rudimentary image of him (not yet a decent ikon!) or, at best, with an aspect of him. I am unable to resist the brilliance of his writing, especially the early treatises–I do not mean his rhetoric, which I can very easily resist. I prefer the dialectic of Anselm. The personality of Bernard is, to me, difficult and unappealing. Yet I admit I have never really known him and agree with [Michael David] Knowles that it is very difficult to know B.

  Reading William Owen Chadwick’s excellent essay From Bossuet to Newman–idea of doctrinal development. Disturbed by the realization that since the late Middle Ages the Church has apparently lost her power of really creative assimilation (of non-Christian cultural values) and has on the contrary tended to let heresy be assimilated by secular forces. Reasons for this? And what does it mean?

  A very grim portent.

  Again–the pompous absurdity of Pontifical Mass. I don’t usually even look at the sanctuary. Happened to glance at the throne, and the Abbot standing on his platform a little above the general melée–I saw his hands and his white gloves. What for? Along with all the other superfluities, the meaninglessness of white gloves and a ring (outside the glove of course).

  There are many like myself in the community. The Abbot claims he loves simplicity, but in fact these masses are contrived largely because he wants them–along with Dom Vital5 and the others who like a display, and much singing.

  The hermitage-is a shame (I discover now) because I have been and continue to be tempted to justify it. Have a certain uneasiness about it. Better I come to accept it as “unjustified” (and not require justification: it simply is). Yet the mere woods, out “there”–anywhere–free–are “better”–they do not involve thought or attach moralizing explanations to themselves. Same thing about the community, the desperate, maddening obsession with explanation, formulation, declaration, justifying our excellence, infallibly defining our own rightness. What a disgrace! It is what makes me livid every morning in chapter. To all this I must obviously say “no”–and it is a virtuous “irresignation.” Not a rebellion. At the same time I realize that my own struggle on this point is important for the integrity of others, and must be accepted especially for their sake.

  During Mass (in novitiate chapel) silence, peace, “renunciation” of my own being, wanting only Him to be who is–and the rest in relation to Him.

  Thanksgiving very quiet and peaceful, with a little bird I had not noticed before singing, clearly, definitely, seven or eight times (at wide intervals). Re-re-re-mi-mi-do. And with what beautiful finality, as if those three notes contained and summed up all the melodies in the world.

  August 23, 1963

  Yesterday was in some ways a rough day.

  Discovery of what is apparently the key to the trouble over the Macmillan contract. A letter from Bob Giroux explicitly refusing to release me from the contract never reached me. Or was the letter really written? Was it introduced into the file after the trouble got to the point of a lawsuit, in order to cover Giroux himself? I don’t know. But the whole thing was disturbing to me either way: the sense of helplessness in facing manipulations over which I can exercise no rational influence.

  However, I had a good morning (yesterday) working on Baker’s life of Dame Gertrude More–a very wise and beautiful book, and strikingly original. A fine, free, courageous spirituality, so unlike the hidebound continental manuals of piety. And really “monastic.”

  An intuition that may lead somewhere. Though the liberty of St. Anselm and the liberty of [Jean-Paul] Sartre seem poles apart, they may actually have a great deal in common. Both seek to transcend mere choice of predetermined objects–choice based on pragmatic offers of “happiness” in this or that–the choice which regards the fulfillmen
t of the will as lying in something outside itself. For Anselm’s “justitia” [“justice”] is rectitudo propter se servata [rectitude properly services itself] and this rectitude is in the will itself–and in God inviting the will to God and fulfilling the inner potentialities of the free being–making that being truly free. Thus for both Sartre and Anselm, the exercise of true freedom is demanded for a being to become what it is. Abdication of this freedom, and use of the will only for commodum, convenience, “happiness”–is the mark of the salaud (of the salaud [sloven] of Sartre and the insipiens [fool] of Anselm who makes a trifling and uncommitted use of concepts). However, Sartre is the freedom of Anselm with a short circuit, turned back upon itself in a ruined narcissism that cannot be anything other than nausea. Nausée [nausea] is then Sartre’s “rectitudo propter se” without any root in being.

  Both Anselm and Sartre have this in common. They are concerned with “une morale de l’authenticité” [“a morale of authenticity”]. But the great difference comes in that for A. the authentic use of freedom is measured by God’s love, and for Sartre it is measured by nothing but the act itself. The great question is then how one looks at God’s love. Not as an objective and exterior force, but as His indwelling Spirit. It is this that Sartre needs to be delivered from, the demon of his own meaninglessness. A. considers the divine will not so much an external force, as an inner ontological necessity in man made in God’s image. (He can only be himself in serving God.)

  August 26, 1963

  Hot, damp days, though today was damp and cool.

  Yesterday, my feast [the Feast of St. Louis of France], was a little nerve racking, as usual, but it was good. And I am really happy to be loved by the monks, and to love them, in an offhand and I think genuine way. The main thing is that I trust them and respect them, quite sincerely, and this they appreciate, and because of their appreciation I love them very much, though there is no need to go around making speeches about it. They gave me a wacky, funny card, with a cartoon of me, etc., etc.

  Walked in the heat, yesterday, stood under big trees by St. Malachy’s field and waited for air. But it was pleasant.

  Dom Bede Griffiths was here–very good, ascetic, thin, quiet man. His ashram [Kurisumala in Kerala, India] sounds very genuine and very good. The Syro-Malabar rite (he said a Mass in Chapter for the Brothers) seemed to me to be magnificent liturgy. What must the real Mass be, with all the responses and bells! The texts were superb. Most serious and eschatological.

  I do not know if I am well or not. Or what the numbness in my left arm means (it is always going to sleep). But in my case, health or sickness, or whatever else comes: I ask only to please God in life and in death, and for the rest there is precious little to think or worry about.

  Tried to get some of my unfinished work together. With revision of several essays, etc. And revision of The Inner Experience. I have still four or five books on hand, not counting Prayer as Worship [and Experience], etc.

  August 28, 1963. St. Augustine

  Altogether too many visitors this month. Not all of them mine, but I was involved in too many conferences, conversations, etc. Certainly not only for myself, and I must consider first of all the good of others. But also my own. Too much talking is simply futile, even though many good things are said, and good friendships are made. Yet I do not like to become intransigent and refuse absolutely. Yet I must refuse more (although I refuse much already).

  One I did not see was Mrs. [Jeanne Cato] Nooijen, who sent her thesis on [Léon] Bloy, with a letter of mine photostatted in appendix [A Study of Bloy, 1963]. And on the back of Dorothy Day’s new book [Loaves and Fishes, 1963] another letter of mine. I am glad to help, but–too many letters. My silence would really be of greater value to all these people, to the causes and to myself. Yet always there seems to be a reason to give in, and it seems to be, in each case, pleasing to God. But how do I know?

  Offered the Mass of this Feast for all those in the great (Negro) march on Washington today. Dan and Phil Berrigan are in it. And for racial justice. For understanding and right actions.

  Last two days–working on Baker. His ideas on examination of conscience.

  Edmund Wilson’s book Apology to the Iroquois is the kind of thing that moves me very deeply, more deeply than anything perhaps except the Old Testament Prophets. And in the same kind of way: sense of an inscrutable and very important mystery, the judgment of the white race and of “Christendom” by its acts and insensitivities. The centuries of blind willful cruelty and greed. The Iroquois have despaired of the whites almost as the Black Muslims have!!

  August 31, 1963

  August ending beautifully–bright days, relatively cool. Wonderful vista opened up at the end of the novitiate garden where I got Father Gerard to cut down the walnut tree that was doing poorly and hiding the valley, woods and knobs into the bargain. Now a problem–the young beech tree that I put there myself. I suppose I must have the sense to transplant it.

  Some annoyances, but they hardly matter. Bulldozer on that dam built ten years ago across the road, and now beginning to fall apart. A lot of banging in the new waterworks. I think all the mosquitoes are coming from the new reservoir–never so many in the dormitory as this year! An awful lot of idiot letters. And so on.

  September 1, 1963. Day of Recollection

  Tu ipse elementer dispone me et omnes cogitatus et actus meos in beneplacito tuo, ut fiat a me et in me et de me tua semper sola voluntas. [Do you yourself in kindness dispose of me, my thoughts and actions, according to your good pleasure, so that your will may always be done by me and in me and concerning me.] (St. Anselm, Orationes 1)

  September 2, 1963

  After the Night Office–cool, and dark–mist on the low bottoms, a glow of red in the east, still a long way from dawn, and small, clear purple clouds in the glow. Sirius shining through the girders of the water tower and high over the building a star travels east–no sound of a plane, perhaps it is some spaceship.

  September 3, 1963

  News has come through about the great civil rights demonstration in Washington last week. It was impressive, orderly and successful. (Though hard to say precisely how.) The best thing about it seems to be the consolidation of the best Negro leadership. (Martin Luther King, etc.) The night before the march, W. E. B. Du Bois died in Ghana. He had recently become a Communist, which is sad. He felt that capitalism had no way of exorcising its inner contradictions–and there may be some truth in that.

  [Robert Charles] Zaehner’s new book, Matter and Spirit, is an attempted synthesis of Marxist Christianity with the help of Teilhard de Chardin. So far I am not sure I am impressed.

  Today has been hot, stuffy, grey. Now it is at last beginning to rain lightly. My left shoulder hurts. My left arm keeps going to sleep. Have briefly reworked most of the rather fatuous manuscript on Art and Worship. It is perhaps a waste of time, but I don’t like to leave it unfinished. However, if it comes to collecting more pictures, I don’t see how it is possible. The whole question of illustrations is very muddled. There is no use in getting into another silly mess with Farrar, Straus. I don’t know what I mean to do.

  September 8, 1963

  For several days now I have been having continuous pain, often quite severe, in my left shoulder and arm. The doctors from Georgia, who were here on this project, said it was not heart. No one is quite sure yet what it is. Heat pad does not help much. A couple of times I have sat in the sun. Aspirin makes me sick at my stomach. I am very tired.

  Brother Denis (Phillips) made profession today and a postulant entered. (We sent away two others who were supposed to enter with him.) Consoled by Brother Denis’ profession. I am fond of him and pleased with his simplicity and rectitude. Certainly one of the best novices I have had.

  Still reading, or trying to read, St. Anselm, Augustine Baker, Edmund Wilson on the Iroquois.

  Ulfert Wilke was here and gave me his fabulously good book of recent “calligraphies.” Yesterday Father Bernard Häring came to see
me, and it turned out that the reason was my writing about peace. He thought it was important for this to continue and said he would speak to the General about it. He said I should be writing about peace to make reparation for St. Bernard’s preaching of crusades–and that if a monk could preach a crusade then a monk could certainly be allowed to write about peace. Needless to say I agree.

  I hear Dom Walter [Helmstetter] is resigning as Abbot of the Genesee and coming back here. He is younger than I–we were novices together.

  September 10, 1963

  One of the things St. Anselm has to say to the modern age is that the potestas peccandi–the “power” to sin–is not a “power” and not an expression of freedom, nor does it even enter into the deprivation of freedom. This is the crux of the matter in comparing Anselm with Sartre. The point is that Sartre is groping for the kind of rectitude St. Anselm makes essential to freedom. The problem: to find a notion of sin that is not devout and meaningless, and which can be relevant to an existentialist! Not as hard as all that, when you approach it from the point of view of freedom and so sin as a capitulation, a renunciation of freedom and an abdication of personality–not its affirmation. It is in rectitude that the will finds its natural and perfect self-determination. To be redeemed by Christ is then to be freed from all servitude–but to be redeemed by a creature would have inspired servitude. We are redeemed by the obedience of Christ which is not an obedientia de-scribendi vitam [an obedience describing life] but an obedientia servandi justi-tiam [an obedience which preserves justice] (i.e., of full liberty).