Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  July 9, 1965

  Today is the Feast of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher. I will say their Mass (from the common, anyway). Am supposed to go to Louisville, and am to ride in with the Abbot from New Zealand [Southern Star Abbey], a big, earnest, modest Irishman, Dom Joachim [Joseph] Murphy, who is very intently seeking answers, and is still on his way home from the General Chapter. Difficulties of the New Zealand foundation–earthquakes, drought, etc. And all the usual difficulties of Cistercian communities–tensions, etc. He has a “hermit problem.” I suppose everyone will have a “hermit problem” soon. That is, every community. He seems willing to have a hermitage. I told him, assured him, that I was not pushing the hermit idea for many and believed few in our Order would really want it. He spoke considerately of Parkminster and of Cistercians who had gone there. Spoke well of the Carmelites in Christchurch.

  From the way Dom James talks, it seems he will probably be willing to make the change of novice masters when Father Timothy goes to Rome in September. In which case I will finally be up here for good, and will begin the real adaptation to solitude. Even sleeping here, etc. is still only a halfway solution. To finally cut the tie, no job, no “place” in the community. This will be momentous. And then the whole question of mail, of publication, etc. arises, but I think this will solve itself.

  My one real difficulty with faith is in really accepting the truth that the Church is a redeemed community not only juridically, but so that in fact to follow the mind of the Church is to be free from the mentality of the fallen society. Ideally I see this. But in fact there is so much that is not redeemed, and that seems to get into the thinking of those who represent the Church. To my mind the idea of officially approving the bomb in Schema 13 is not exactly a convincing demonstration of holiness and guidance by the Spirit. I wonder what they will really do. Actually I must do much more praying and thinking about this question of the Church and see it more in depth than I do. Certainly I cannot accept a merely individualistic Christianity (authenticity for individuals, not for the Christian community); on the other hand, too external a view of the Church would be wrong. Who really is she, this Spouse of Christ, “so bright and clear”? I know she is the Catholic Church. But then…? The life of Newman, which still goes on in the refectory is to me inexhaustibly important and full of meaning. The whole thing is there, existentially not explicit, but there for the grasping. The reality is on his kind of obedience and his kind of refusal. Complete obedience to the Church and complete, albeit humble, refusal of the pride and chicanery of Churchmen.

  Evening–the sun is going down on what was evidently a day of peace. Rode in to Louisville with Bernard Fox and Dom Joachim Murphy, after saying the Mass of St. Thomas More, etc. (Common–Sapientiam) at the memento of the living, besides offering the Mass for my friends and particularly Jim Wygal. I also suddenly got the idea of including “anyone I may meet by surprise today.” In the bookstore at the University of Louisville, I had been there about five minutes, I heard someone talking French. Turned around. They were three students from France who had just that moment arrived, having walked all the way from the Greyhound Station. What they were doing in the bookstore neither they nor I knew. They had been sent over on some exchange, had come a week early, no one had been notified, no arrangements were made for them, they knew no one, etc., etc. They had seen the man in charge of the project, and something was being done, however.

  They were from Montpellier-students at the university. One from Agen in fact. We went and had some coffee and talked. It was very enjoyable, interesting, intelligent talk, people from home!! I invited them out to the Abbey, and perhaps they will come. There are some nineteen others whom I did not see. (They were wandering around and these three did not know where to begin looking for them.) The thing about the encounter was whether or not they got anything out of it, it was a revelation of Christ to me–just because they were human, open, frank, sincere, interested in ideas, and in a situation where they were fully exposed to risk and possibility. A meeting of possibilities resulting in new ideas, new directions for all of us (in a small way at least). The theology of “encounter” is not just a phrase. What else is the Acts of the Apostles? The whole life of the Christian is “The Acts of the Apostles.”

  From this has come the answer to the question about the Church as a “redeemed society.” Socially in what sense? Merely organization? The scene of encounter, the peace of openness, where possibilities are kept free and clear, where the word can be spoken (not according to a predetermined pattern or clever manipulation, but simply spoken). And where it is spoken, there is the eschatological event, the freedom of grace, a freedom that breaks through all the artificialities of predetermination and prejudice and in fact acts right across all the accepted patterns of society. Yet not without some help from society (language, common aspirations, shared experience, etc.).

  Tonight, reading Bultmann in the hermitage, was quite luminous. I see now, clearly, that a “gnostic” approach is inauthentic because not existentialist–it simply presupposes a cosmic presence and a substantial ground which one contacts or not by awareness (it makes not much difference). No! It is word and event. And mere “sitting” and “recollection” are not enough (though they have their place)–by themselves they lead to no decision, no overturning, no renunciation of one’s precious “wisdom” in exchange for the foolishness of the Cross, in which is pure light. I would not have seen this now if I had not seen it before, but now much more conclusively. And the effect is conclusive too, for the hermitage. Meanwhile I realize how good and simple a friend Jim Wygal is too, after all, and I have been interiorly, to some extent, foolishly intolerant of some of his limitations–as if such things were of any importance whatever, especially since he is aware of them and humbled by them!

  If I had thought less of wrath in those days, I would perhaps be less aware of this blessing. And all is blessing, even wrath!

  July 11, 1965

  Yesterday the new anthology by Paris Leary and Robert Kelly arrived. Controversy of Poets. Ambiguous title, good anthology, in fact it strikes me as one of the best and I am certainly glad to be in it.5 Found a lot of new people I had never heard of but like. Especially a fine long poem by Galway Kinnell about the Lower East Side. A good one on Kennedy’s funeral by Georgia Lee McElhaney. (How would you pronounce it?) I like the abstract dances of Jackson Mac Low, and Jack Spicer’s poem on the death of Billy the Kid. Diane Wakoski, O.K. Gary Snyder I had heard of but not read. Like his poems, they are more substantial because of Zen, not just poured out. Reading [Allen] Ginsberg’s long ether-sniffing poem from Lima, have concluded for Ginsberg, it is a good poem and one must take Ginsberg on his own terms. I defy the cowards who bully Ginsberg. Jonathan Williams I knew before. Liked “Blues for Lonnie Johnson” and great atomic stuff in the Blake-like poem [“In England’s Green and (A Garland and a Clyster)”]. Maybe Jonathan Williams best in the book. I’ll get to know later. Denise Levertov always good. And [Lawrence] Ferlinghetti also. I liked the underwear poem and the Castro [“One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro”] I saw before.

  July 12, 1965

  Yesterday the regular Sunday concelebrations began. It makes sense to concelebrate on the Lord’s Day and though in many ways I do not “like” it I see that this is best, and will sign up for it. There is no question that this makes far more sense than the old way (private Mass, then High Mass) for here the community all assembles, and most go to communion, and guests are there, etc. My difficulties are not with the principle or the idea, but still with the way we do it, and our apparent attitude. But this is of no real importance. Yet yesterday I was miserable over something, hard to say what. I concelebrated, but could not get any conviction that it was real. I suppose the real root is my deep distrust of Dom James (who is of course principal celebrant) and my profound disagreement with him, my inability to believe him. To stand up and affirm my “unity” with him seems like a damned lie, to say it frankly. And yet I suppose that is
precisely why we should concelebrate. Because I am united with my Abbot in will and obedience, though not in agreement. Yet the situation is not healthy, and for that reason I still have a doubt about habitual concelebration.

  To concelebrate in such circumstances is to be “under judgment” and “under wrath” (yet mercy, for accepting the wrath). Should I simply accept the wrath and contradiction? The question is–where is the wrong? Am I being untrue to God by affirming something I should not try to affirm? I think not. I think the unity of the Church comes first and that my affirmation of unity with a Superior by whom I feel myself exploited and harmed (though he has been very “kind” in God knows how many ways!) is an affirmation of unity with the Church, of willingness to be under the wrath which I see, not merely to criticize it and complain of it. I am part of it. I cannot stand outside and say “I am not like this Dom James, an operator, complex, inauthentic.” It is good that concelebration should bring this out. I can see there is need for more! I am shamed by the evident faith and joy of the others!

  Concelebration again, a theological ambiguity (existentially). Can I say that by this affirmation of unity I am delivered from the “powers of this world,” the “elements” of Paul! When in fact for many in the community concelebration has a “political” cast, being an expression of “political” progress in community affairs and is the result of charity, yes, but also of an implicit “deal” an adjustment between abbot and members, in line with a “political” propaganda theme discernible in the Church (and in presence of the world) as a symbol of the Church’s will to survive as a definite power and influence in the modern world. Is it an affirmation that “we count” (or want to) in the eyes of, and in the context of, a political universe?

  This is probably neurotic hairsplitting, but the question presents itself.

  July 14, 1965

  A very busy day (after a quiet, long day at the hermitage yesterday). In the morning Father Peter came in (without formal permission) to talk of a vocation problem (sixty-seven years old, twenty-seven years in the monastery!) and it is a sad problem, not so much because there is not something that can be done, as because they insist on treating him as an infant and as a nuisance, for whom there is but one remedy: keep him locked up here, and let him do the best he can to keep himself from going nuts by any expedient he pleases (lately–taming birds). In a way it is sad and cruel. He has gone all the way to Rome (by letter) to get another impersonal and unconcerned “no,” which should not have been necessary. Dom James with all his best intentions cannot deal directly and frankly with such a case and there is really no way of doing so, in the framework we have here. What Peter needs is simply a vacation. But that would hurt the precious reputation of Gethsemani. So he can rot here instead, incidentally disturbing a lot of other people in the process. I feel very sorry for him. I also think Dom James does what he can–but that is no solution. Is there a solution?

  In the afternoon: Jim Douglass and his wife, Sally, and Father John Loftus came out. We went up to Dom Frederic’s lake and sat under the young loblolly pines and drank cokes. Some local kids were swimming in the lake. It was cloudy, but did not rain until supper time. There is still much talk of Pope Paul coming to the United Nations in September. I gave Jim the copies of La Pira’s letters to Robert Kennedy. La Pira is working earnestly for disarmament–not much sign of this country disarming. The Vietnam war has shown the complete stupidity of Johnson in a way that everyone can see except the average American! Jim says the polls are running 70% in favor of the war, and that is all that matters! A fiction of self-generating public opinion, which justifies everything.

  Came back to the hermitage, not feeling like going to bed. Mist over the field after rain. Diffuse sound of crickets in the dusk. I sat on the porch and the strange owl-like cry of a frightened deer came from the field. I saw the white tail bounding away in the mist. Nine o’clock rings. I had better think of going to bed.

  July 17, 1965. Our Lady of Carmel

  This is the patronal feast of the hermitage. The alarm clock worked for a change. I had a good meditation, the morning is quiet, high clouds in the south slowly parading Eastward with their faintly sunlit peaks (sun hidden by clouds still low in the east). Yesterday (which is Carmel’s feast elsewhere) I did not get in the concelebration but took the day in the hermitage and woods, and must admit I feel saner and more peaceful for it. This is not to be taken as a statement of principle–only a fact, in my present circumstances.

  Bultmann’s inadequate notions of the Church. Good to see clearly where his existentialism falls short of genuine Christianity. This is of course a danger for me too. There is no question I think individualistically, to a great extent. But I also realize the insufficiency of this. At the same time a superficial inadequate communal spirit will only make things worse for me, not better. There is no question of the deep inauthenticity of the common life in this monastery, in most religious communities, and in the Church. It is due in part to the way authority is conceived and exercised (to the great psychological and spiritual harm of many) and to the fact that this can hardly be remedied as matters stand (at least here). The “new” approach, however, seems to me to be equally inauthentic, for reasons that are more obscure. I think the relationships set up are based more on insecurities and superficial needs than on the Spirit and on faith. They do not spell authenticity. In Ellul’s Propagandes there are good reasons why. What is happening is not unity in the Spirit so much as a “propaganda for integration,” and the participation of which all are so proud tends to be really a concerted and determined complicity in mutual persuasion–a kind of liberal triumphalism making itself come true.

  I finished the article on Zen Monasticism6 yesterday (really the day before-edited the long quote from Sekiso yesterday early). It seems to me to be a fairly good article–and it meant much to me when I was writing it. Father Charles English, one of the censors of Chuang Tzu, wrote that he liked the manuscript so much that he wants to keep it and use it for a while. I was consoled by this, for I had been tempted to think all this was useless for any but myself and a few oddballs like me. But perhaps it can reach many more. Father Charles of course is an intellectual too, so I suppose his reaction is not too surprising or representative. But from the reactions of novices, etc. I realize there is a great need for this element of recalling men to their selves, and they are not finding this easily in Catholic writings today, at least not in this particular form. Letters from Etta Gullick, about the same thing in England. The Catholics she (an Anglican) reaches with her ideas on prayer.

  “An important part of the witness of the Church, or in other words an important way of proclaiming the Word must be simply a manifestation within the Christian community of a spirit of fellowship and love which cannot be found outside it,” writes McQuarrie in his critique of Bultmann (Existential Theology, p. 221). He recognizes organization as a “problem.” Love is least in evidence when the Church is most organized, perhaps most in evidence when Christians were driven into deserts or catacombs. (This is a concession he makes.) He also admits the Church can usurp what rightly belongs to the person and make all his decisions for him (or try to). (Why the question of the bomb is an “exposed nerve” in the whole problem of renewal.) Here is where the Bishops (especially American) want to decide the whole question of war, etc. beforehand, instead of letting the faithful come to their own conclusions as the situation develops.

  July 18, 1965. Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

  There is a special peace and sense of blessing on Sunday morning, though all mornings are equally quiet here (at hermitage) and the same birds always sing. This special peace is sensible even when there are no signs of Sunday–such as the faint Mass bell from the village church in New Hope, across the valley! Today the peace is even greater because of the storm and cleansing in the night. A very violent thunderstorm broke about 1, with continual lightning and uninterrupted thunder for about an hour. I slept through one of these a few weeks ago but not this one
. Lightning touched the riser of my electrical system and was grounded, but I felt the click of it through the whole house, and even felt as if electricity were coming out of my feet (in bed).

  Seeing more and more that my understanding of myself and of my life has always been most inadequate. Now that I want more than ever to see, I realize how difficult it is. Though there is danger, doubtless, in solitude, I realize more than ever that here, for me, is confrontation with the word, and with God, and with the only possibilities that are fully real, or with those that are most real. (There is something real after all in community, but more and more, as I go down there, I have the sense that reality is smothered there and words are substituted for it.) Yet my job and that of the Church remains this: to awaken in myself and in others the sense of real possibility, of truth, of obedience to Him who is Holy, of refusal of pretenses and servitudes–without arrogance and hubris and specious idealism. The terrible thing is that our society that pretends to be Christian is in fact rejecting the word of God, enabled to do so by the all-pervading suffocating noise of its own propaganda, able to make itself believe whatever it wants. This is a deluding, fanatical, stupid society. It is under judgment–and what can one say to it? It would be useless to pretend to be perfect, for no one, as far as I can see, is “sent” with any prophetic message. Least of all I–best I can do is the feeble attempt of the notes on Schema 13, etc. to the Commonweal, Bishop Wright, Archbishop Flahiff and others.

  July 19, 1965

  Big jet liner coming down toward Louisville in the dawn sky, beautiful great fish with an enormous tail fin and a long body which (at one moment only) caught under itself the clear bronze gold glint of sunrise. Then it slid on down behind my black pines.