Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  June 22, 1965

  Will say the Mass of St. Alban when I go down today (Day of recollection). Misty morning. Lots of noise from Boone’s cows. Yesterday Father Matthew with his crazy little tractor cut the long grass in the field next [to] the hermitage, and in order to do work that would not require too much concentration, did some texts of St. Maximus on non-violence, perhaps for Catholic Worker. May finish these today.

  Father Timothy (and Barnabas) going to Rome, perhaps first of September. This means a change of undermasters and I am trying to persuade Dom James to get a new novice master at the same time, but he is reluctant, for no very solid reason. Insists that I wait till January 1. “Better psychology!” etc.

  The Mass of St. Alban (Laetabitur justus) was fine, especially the Epistle.

  There is a fantastic picture of McDevitt in space over the curve of the earth and the North American continent, with the Gulf of Mexico under him. There is no denying the greatness of their excitement, and though it is useless, perhaps it is the uselessness of great art. Who knows? In any event I see there is no sense in remaining blind to this: to be aware of all this “Space age” business is to realize the tremendous symbolic importance of it, whether for good or evil I don’t know and maybe it is not for me to judge. There is the fact of these happenings and of all that goes into making them. Hugely impressed, too, by the enormous gantries of Cape Kennedy, and the astounding room where the instruments show where the spaceflight is. NO question of the greatness of all this: and does it have to be necessarily the greatness of “the Beast”? I don’t know, whether or not it is, there is no sense in screaming about it. So perhaps I too will become cool.

  June 23, 1965. Vigil of St. John Baptist

  The monks had haircutting and it was announced that the choir professed could get rid of their crowns [the tonsure] if they wanted to and just have their heads completely shaved. The only ones who kept the crown were Dom Vital, Fathers Idesbald, Arnold, Raymond, Bernard, Vianney, Bede, David, Paul of the Cross and myself. Ten out of about fifty. I did not keep it for sentimental reasons, but because the community, including the brothers, was supposed to vote on it–and this decides the issue before it can be voted on.

  Ernesto Cardenal sent his new booklet of poems (“Oración for Marilyn Monroe,” etc.), and they are very fine, simple, direct, with an extraordinary poetic sense of modern life seen with great innocence and clarity. Also some pages he wrote on my anti-bomb essays reprinted from Papeles de son Armedans. The Chuang Tzu manuscript goes off to New Directions today.

  June 26, 1965

  Yesterday, Feast of the Sacred Heart, was very cool and clear–in the early morning (as also today) it was more like September than June. Father Lawrence, my undermaster when I was in the novitiate twenty-three years ago, returned from the monastery in Georgia for a while. I could not recognize him–he is much fatter (was very gaunt then). The Feast of the Sacred Heart was for me a day of grace and seriousness. Twenty years ago I was uncomfortable with this concept. Now I see the real meaning of it (quite apart from the externals). It is the center, the “heart” of the whole Christian mystery.

  There is one thing more–I may be interested in Oriental religions, etc., but there can be no obscuring the essential difference–this personal communion with Christ at the center and heart of all reality, as a source of grace and life. “God is love” may perhaps be clarified if one says that “God is void” and if in the void one finds absolute indetermination and hence absolute freedom. (With freedom, the void becomes fullness and o = ∞). All that is “interesting” but none of it touches on the mystery of personality in God, and His personal love for me. Again, I am void too–and I have freedom, or am a kind of freedom, meaningless unless oriented to Him.

  The other day (St. John Baptist perhaps) after my Mass I suddenly thought of Ann Winser, Andrew’s little sister. She was about twelve or thirteen when I used to visit him on the Isle of Wight, in that quiet rectory at Brooke. She was the quietest thing on it, dark and secret child. One does not fall in love with a child of thirteen, and I hardly remember even thinking of her. Yet the other day I realized that I had never forgotten her and with a sort of Burnt Norton feeling about the part of the garden I never went to, and that if I had taken another turn in the road I might have ended up married to Ann. Actually, I think she is a symbol of the true (quiet) woman I never really came to terms [with] in the world, and because of this there remains an incompleteness that cannot be remedied. The years in which I chased whores or made whores out of my girlfriends (no, that is too strong and also silly, besides there were plenty that I was too shy to sleep with) did nothing to make sense of my life on the contrary. When I came to the monastery, Ginny Burton was the symbol of the girl I ought to have fallen in love with but didn’t (and she remains the image of one I really did love with a love of companionship not of passion).

  There is now more of a possibility that the change in the novitiate may be made in September, and I move entirely to the hermitage then.

  Reading Karl Stern’s Flight from Woman. Some fascinating material (loaded word–mater!) especially in the chapter on Descartes. Back to the picture of McDevitt in space (now in color on our cloister board). Space flights are after all a rather expensive way of convincing oneself that one is free from mother. I see the beauty of the uselessness, and its uselessness. This space business will certainly never get anywhere, or not to any “where” that they may be thinking of. It will have momentous results, but how and in what–? I don’t think anyone yet really knows. But for me, precisely I see what matters is not space but earth. The Bible spoke of Paradise in the beginning (harmony of Heaven and Earth, Father, Mother) not of man coming down from a heaven of ideas in outer space. What are we trying to find? What number? Who are we trying to contact out there?

  Real importance of Teilhard–his affirmation of the “holiness of matter.” And this is the real reason for the deepest opposition to him. (My own opposition is to naive Teilhardism–not to Teilhard de Chardin because I have not studied him enough. I like the Divine Milieu and find him personally a very sympathetic figure.)

  June 27, 1965. Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul

  Visit of Alexander Peloquin Saturday to talk about composing the Freedom Songs for a concert in the Fall. His ideas (as yet not very well defined) sound good. I was irritated with Dom James yesterday. In preparation for the vote on “the crowns” next Sunday, he seemed to be intent on making sure everyone, or the majority, went his way. Last week at the haircutting time he got himself an ambiguous crown, one that was barely visible, the rest of the hair being cropped fairly long, not close shaved. Friday or Saturday he had the lot shaved off and Sunday he declared that having not even a crown symbolized “the renunciation of everything”–it now being obvious that most of the community want no crown. Thus he (who previously was for the crown) now has the distinction of leading everyone in the direction in which they have in fact led him.

  The whole thing is a bit comical, and I am foolish to let it make me feel annoyed by it. But since I kept the crown (in order to try to keep some meaning for the vote, which now can have none whatever), I think he was implicitly criticizing me and trying to cut me (and the minority) down to size. What size? As if we had any importance at all in the first place! It is the pettiness of it that irks me.

  Gnats in the jakes. Distractions at prayer. Brother Job has made some “wine” which is not bad (but certainly not as strong as he claims). Brother Clement is still in Europe. The Critic has asked for an article on Existentialism and I think I will do it.

  June 29, 1965. Saints Peter and Paul

  Yesterday after my Mass I was distracted (as I am more and more, lately) by the fear that in the next abbatial election I might be elected abbot. I certainly do not think this fear is entirely irrational, though perhaps it distracts me too deeply. It is certain that I am very much respected by the majority of the community. The fact that they should continue to listen to my conferences with real int
erest after so long, and go out of their way (sometimes) to hear them does mean something. The brothers are especially interested, though I think they are to some extent under an illusion. Illusion or not, they now have a vote and will vote for the next abbot. When this was announced (read at refectory) my neighbor Father Amandus was making signs to me: “You’ve had it!!”

  On the other hand, more than ten years ago, providentially, I made a vow never to accept an abbatial election. The vow was approved by Dom James and Dom Gabriel, and Dom James immediately used it in the Genesee elections where the voting was going my way (I am glad he did, seeing the trouble Dom Walter had!). If I were elected I would certainly refuse. But the distraction begins–supposing for some reason I could not refuse? Suppose it was forced on me. In the first place, I don’t think it can be. But anyway, suppose it is? At this point I get overwhelmed with depression and despair. I can hardly imagine a more impossible situation (among those that are likely to happen in my life as it is). I am profoundly disillusioned with the Cistercian life as it is now going. I am certainly willing to obey those who are running it, but to run a community myself would be inconceivable. I have no interest in the aims that would have to be mine. I would not want to let the monks down, but how could I possibly do anything for them? And how could I handle all the misfits and malcontents (except by throwing them all out!)? It seems to me that if I took the job, within three years the monastery would be in a state of collapse. But I think I would probably collapse myself in three months. And so the distraction goes–much anguish.

  Finally at the conventual Mass, I was moved by the Gospel and introit (“When you are old they will bind you and lead you where you do not want to go”)–and I was able at least to accept the idea in peace–supposing the job were really obviously God’s will. I would try to take it in a spirit of trust and faith and forget myself. But in any case I think my vow would be respected and I have no real fears. The surrender brought me real peace. What matters is not the job or the refusal, but simply God’s will and His ways. His love is enough.

  Another painful situation is coming up with Dom James. The Collectanea board of editors is supposed to meet in Belgium in September. I am on the board and they want me there since the magazine is in crisis. (Well might it be! It is awful.) So though I have told the editor (Father Charles Dumont) the situation, he is intent on getting me there. Dom James will undoubtedly do everything he can to prevent it, by fair means or…He is not always scrupulously fair in such matters! And the emotionalism, the illuminist arguments! I dread it! However, I may not even be involved in the mess–he may just squash the whole thing in a five-page letter to the General and there will not even be any discussion on my part which is fine with me. One simply can’t talk rationally to the man on such an issue. There is no communication. Meanwhile Brother Clement has been over there for two months and he finished his business in Norway a month ago. Father Chrysogonus’ leave has been extended once again, and so on.

  Slight difficulty with a novice–the business man type–who does not take correction easily. Sunday on my walk I had to be in a place where of all things I saw him sauntering across the field with his shirt off and his pink belly in the sun. Told him not to, as nicely as I could, but he pouted about it. Should I try to explain all this to him? Is it any use? Once again, a problem of communication. If you try to tell him something like this he just goes into a silent sulk, and does not want to discuss anything. Think of having to run a whole monastery with dozens like that in it! (Actually this may have been unjust. He is more sensible and moderate than this would indicate. One must be careful of appearances!! They mislead.)

  Got down to the monastery to find a vituperative letter of a postulant whom we rejected in December. Unfair treatment, we gave him the bum’s rush, etc. Considering this letter I am very glad we did reject him! Also the other day–a letter from a paranoid who writes frequently. Now all are “cruelly taunting” her because she is compelled to scratch her secret parts. Poor thing!!

  I was glad to get back to the healing silence of the hermitage, the tall pines, in the hollow where Brother Colman and the novices have been cleaning out the pine tops left by Andy Boone after his messy logging operation last Lent. Not all was bad in the monastery: a good letter from Donald Allchin at Pusey House, and a good sermon on the missions by Father Romanus. And a letter from Dame Christine [Van der Meer] at Oosterhout.

  June 30, 1965

  Hot damp weather–as befits this season! Yesterday, Saints Peter and Paul, was hot and great and there was a succession of thundershowers, one at dinner time, one in the early afternoon, one toward supper time. The second was longest and best, many clouds and heavy downpour, it filled all my buckets with washing water. During part of the time Andy Boone was here, trying to get leave to cut some more pine trees, and telling all sorts of tall stories about the old days about water witches and gold diviners (a gold diviner here could seem to divine nothing but Fort Knox), civil war guerrillas, Brother Pius’ great strength, the monks getting iron from Gap Hill to make the bolts for the first building, etc.

  After supper I went down to the monastery and took my turn on night watch, came back in dark summer woods (a few fireflies). At night there was another storm but I barely heard it.

  July 2, 1965. Visitation

  This morning I had a long morning at the hermitage. I did not go down to the monastery until 10 for concelebration. The early hours were cool, I did some reading on Bultmann, then decided to write an open letter to the American Bishops, about Schema 13 and the chapter under way.4 The main event of the morning: Mother Angela [Collins], my friend in the Louisville Carmel (whom I have not seen much of since she was Prioress), wrote the other day that she was going South to Savannah to be Prioress of the Carmel there, to try to keep it from collapsing. I was expecting her plane, for the southbound planes out of Louisville–at least the ones to Atlanta and Florida, go right over here fairly low. (The ones from Chicago are very high.) I walked under the pines and soon the plane appeared on time and went over, very fast, a beautiful big new jet with wings almost as far back as the tail. It was really a beautiful sight, and as I had told her to look out for us, I suppose she saw the monastery and perhaps even picked out the hermitage, as I told her where to look. I was happy for her up there in the sky and was even moved. I was always quite fond of her. She was one of the few people I could talk to absolutely freely about my ideas and hopes for the solitary life, which to a great extent she shares, and which she completely understands. She is very frank about some things I needed to know (about Dom James) and very much of a support. I felt she was very much of a sister to me, and am grateful for her. Will miss her, and hope she will write. One thing about Mother Angela–in the light of Karl Stern’s book–is that she is perfectly feminine and not one of those male nuns!! But with plenty of feminine character and courage.

  July 5, 1965

  Yesterday, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, a vote was taken in chapter on the tonsure and concelebration. All the professed brothers voted, which made it an historic occasion. There were ninety-eight votes for getting rid of the (medieval) monastic corona, twenty-nine for keeping it–I conclude that more brothers and juniors voted for it than choir professed who still had it. (The purpose of the vote was to determine what all the professed would have. Answer: shaved heads, no “crown”). This is all right with me because it is simpler and less pretentious. But because of the ambiguous way in which the vote was approached I technically “abstained” from voting by putting in both the white and the black balls. Concelebration every Sunday was accepted, but over forty were against it. Actually I think this too is a good idea and we will come to appreciate it. I have signed up for the first Sunday Concelebration, next Sunday.

  Does my solitude meet the standard set by my approaching death? No. I am afraid it does not. That possibility which is most intimate, isolated, my own, cannot be shared or described. I cannot look forward to it as an experience I can analyze and share. It is not
something to be understood and enjoyed. (To “understand” and “contemplate” it beforehand is a kind of imposture.) But the solitary life should partake of the seriousness and incommunicability of death. Or should it? Is that too rigid and absolute an ideal? The two go together. Solitude is not death, it is life. It aims not at living death but at a certain fullness of life. But a fullness that comes from honestly and authentically facing death and accepting it without care, i.e., with faith and trust in God. Not with any social justification: not with the reliance on an achievement which is approved or at least understood by others. Unfortunately, even in solitude, though I try not to (and sometimes claim not to) I still depend too much, emotionally, on being accepted and approved.

  Now it is true that in my life, the witness of solitude may perhaps be significant. But there is a great danger here, and it is one of the points where I see my defenselessness, my weakness, my capacity to pretend, and to be untrue. To face my untruth in solitude in preparation for the awful experience of facing it irrevocably in death with no more hope in anything earthly, only in God (totally unseen!). To do this without appealing to others for reassurance that I am not so untrue after all. How do they know, one way or the other? Certainly enough is evident merely in this Journal to destroy me forever after I am dead. But that is the point: not to live as one who can be so “destroyed.” This means, not ingeniously discovering infallible ways of being “true” in the eyes of others and of posterity (if any!) but of accepting my untruth in the untransferrable anguish that is characteristic of death and leaving all “justification” to God. Everything else is only wrath, flame, torment, and judgment.

  The greatest “comfort” (and a legitimate one, not an evasion) is to be sought precisely in the Psalms which face death as it is, under the eye of God, and teach us how we may face it–and bring us at the same time into contact, rather communion, with all those who have so seen death and accepted it. Most of all the Lord Himself who prayed from Psalm 21 on the Cross.