Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  Yesterday I went to talk to Father Abbot about Father Peter, who is getting through his crisis by suddenly doing everything in the community he has not done for years. Reader this week, hebdomadary next, etc. He is coming to choir in his rank and this turn[s] out to be next to me–a quivering, sensitive, tormented presence. Another disturbed monk, Brother B., was also very upset in infirm[ary] refectory at dinner, making signs to me about too much mockery. He would not stand for it. (Nobody ever mocks him.)

  I will have to see the proctologist this week. Painful, unpleasant business, quite sore. I suppose this is part of being fifty.

  However, when I went to Father Abbot after chapter about these things, he ended by saying that on August 20, Feast of St. Bernard, he would make the change in the novitiate and I would be free to be in the hermitage all the time, with no further responsibility except to give one conference a week in the novitiate (Sunday). Father Baldwin is to be the new novice master. Father Timothy will go to Rome soon after that. This was a very pleasant surprise and I was jubilant about it and very moved and grateful. Things like this make me ashamed of my fears and worries and my decision, as this, after all, is really remarkable and shows that he is not merely a politician. It is a most unusual step in the order and one he could not possibly have taken two years ago. Hence he is certainly not guided merely by his own likes and dislikes, his own preferences and fears, and he does really pay attention more than many others, to objective indications of what God wants for His Church. Easy to say this when he gives me something I want. But it has been the same with the new liturgy, etc. Here he has given up stronger repugnancies than he might have had to solitude in the Cistercian life (to which he is personally attracted). Concelebration after that was a moving, humbling and consoling experience, and I think I will have no more of my foolish feelings about it. Thank God for enough light to see my childishness.

  Afternoon in the very quiet hollow behind the hermitage. A few apotheg-mata. Thinking seriously about the change that is to come, and is so momentous for me. One of the greatest mercies of God in my whole life! And the answer to so many prayers, yet one sees here that everything has really been leading directly to this even when it appeared to be hopeless. How happy I am that I stayed on the path where I was all along, and did not succeed in getting off it. (Though by God’s grace my efforts to get off the path were just what kept me most truly on it, and if I had not tried to go elsewhere I would certainly not he in this hermitage now! I do not propose this as a working formula for everyone!)

  In the evening began a perpetual Psalter–a necessity–not to say a given quantity any period of time, but just to keep the Psalter going from now on until I die (or can no longer do it). Need for the continuity the Psalter offers–continuity with my own past and with the past of eremitism. The Latin psalter is for me! It is a deep communion with the Lord and His saints, of my Latin Church. To be in communion with the Saints of my tradition is by that fact to be more authentically in communion with those of the Greek, Syriac, etc. traditions, who reach me through my own Fathers.

  Important note from Ellul on Propaganda. A Mass-man is an individualist who has broken away from the small group and is in direct confrontation with Mass-society. The Mass-man is an individualist alone in the Mass. If one simply breaks away from a religious community and then remains in contact with the world through Mass Media–e.g. TV, radio–one can be a Mass-man in thinking oneself a hermit, i.e., one’s solitude is not in the presence of God, or even in the Church, but in Mass society. No danger of this for me here, I think. But it is something to consider. More important, though–this type of mentality in the community itself, the alienated monks, not in full contact with his brothers, is “alone” in the abstract “community” which makes his decisions for him. An awful and empty solitude that has little meaning, but it is what some of them encourage! In such a situation, the uprooted individual is supposed to assume all the obligations of a mature, well-rooted spiritual freedom, and this is impossible. Why so many leave.

  July 20, 1965

  St. Elias today. He has something to do with it! He is in it!

  Great peace for the last couple of days, since the decision. Any day one could write “great peace” but this is a very special and new dimension of peace: a tranquillity that is not got by cultivation. It is given, and “not as the world gives do I give unto you.” The peace is not “it” but confrontation with Thou. Here Buber is certainly right. Confrontation with “Thee” in this word of solitude. All because this one word, yesterday. All unified in this. One will, one command, one gift. A new creation of heavenly simplicity. I will write little about this, surely. Enough.

  “If a man hears Tao in the morning and dies in the evening, his life has not been wasted.” I think now I really see what this means.

  July 21, 1965

  Went in to see Dr. Ryan. Actually things had already begun to get a little better, and he relieved the discomfort considerably. I had a certain amount of free time, read a good article on Ecology in Daedalus. Had an excellent lunch at the Old House (since Dr. Ryan gave me a Mass stipend!). The day and the drive were pleasant. As usual, the only darkening came from the news magazines in the doctor’s office, including an appalling rape case in Newsweek, some weeks ago, in Los Angeles. The Vietnam war is taken for granted though there is vocal opposition (misguided liberals, “communist inspired,” etc.). Tragic in Vietnam itself, and here nonsensical, complacent, vulgar, morally illiterate. Actually much of the news, most of it, was no news at all–fabricated. (A dialogue between McNamara and a Marine Colonel in Vietnam, etc.) Or else the usual scoresheet. So many of ours dead, so many of “theirs” estimated dead–estimated because our side drops tons of bombs on wide areas of people and hopes someone will get hit. Or else bombs cities in North Vietnam. Not yet cities as such, but targets which may be in or near them. The turn of cities as cities will eventually come. The news reports read now like those in the first nine months of World War II.

  July 25, 1965

  Very hot Friday and Saturday (the first really oppressive summer weather we have had in this extraordinary season). Last evening I was too torpid to pray seriously but hung around trying. Made orangeade for supper and put it in the freezer thereby accidentally discovering how to make rather good sherbet. Storm all night after 11. Slept through most of it. They still continue half-heartedly now in the morning 7:15. Since it rains I do not go down to Prime, will go later for concelebration.

  Reading [Søren] Kierkegaard–selections from The Present Age. Very fine and completely prophetic. One of the best and in some sense most hopeful treatments of the individual in mass-society. “It is in fact through error that the individual is given access to the highest if he courageously drinks it…” The communication of the “cosmic” in the naked exposure of the individual, without mediation, to “pure humanity.” (Can lead to liberation in naked exposure to word of God.) With regard to myself I seek only to pay this high price (far from doing it, we are trained in this!!). And for others–not to “help” them to escape it.

  July 27, 1965

  Today I tried out the schedule that I hope to follow when I am in the hermitage all day: that is, only going down to the monastery to say Mass and have dinner. I had at first thought of going down for Mass after Prime and then going to the conventual Mass, coming up and going down again for dinner. But I see this is really not practical.

  Today I went down late, about 11, and said Mass at 11:30, came back up again after dinner, and that was it. It was a perfect day. Not to run back and forth to the monastery is certainly a blessing. I felt as if a great load had been lifted off me, and in the late afternoon, saying office before supper, I realized that a complete, total and solid peace had settled completely upon me–a happiness without afterthought and without reflection. “All things are yours and you are Christ’s–and Christ is God’s. If we live, we live unto God, if we die, we die unto God–whether we live or die, we are God’s possession.” What more could an
yone ask? But I don’t think for me such things could be fully experienced short of this solitude!

  Fine letter from John Wu who is very pleased with the introduction to Chuang Tzu. Finished first draft of the existentialism article7 for the Critic–thank God I have that out of the way. Now I have nothing to do but set things in order, clear out a lot of books and get ready to move entirely out of the novitiate, at the end of August.

  July 28, 1965

  Some schedule. With this one had time to know the meaning of freedom! And to taste, with all certainty, that free is what one is intended to be. For this one was created and redeemed. This particular form, solitude, is that for which I am “intended.” Or perhaps if that is not an accurate way to speak, it certainly contains within itself the possibilities to which I am open.

  How men fear freedom! And how I have learned to fear it myself! I know that in fact, without faith, this would be a different matter, this living alone. But with faith it becomes an eschatological gift. I have never before really seen what it means to live in the new creation and in the Kingdom. Impossible to explain it. If I tried I would be unfaithful to the grace of it–for I would be setting limits to it. It is limitless, without determination, without definition. It is what you make of it each day, in response to the Holy Spirit!

  I am not even disturbed at the thought that when I call Dr. Ryan today (according to instructions) he may want me in the hospital for a few days. Who cares? It is God’s will and His call. The same freedom is everywhere. It is not limited to places. Yet solitude, these pines, this mist, are the chosen locus of freedom in my own life.

  August 6, 1965

  Returned to hermitage today after a week in St. Anthony’s hospital. In a way it was trying, at least a test of patience. Had to rest, take medicine and sit in a room with machinery going outside–and with an air conditioner on day and night. At least the even noise of the air conditioner neutralized the heavy traffic on Barret Avenue and I was astounded to find myself sleeping nine hours a night!! Evidently it was something I needed, that and the diet, because my stomach calmed down. And I suppose I enjoyed it in a way–saying the new Mass (we don’t have English at Gethsemani yet except for the Brothers), reading a lot. (Finished the Tom Wolfe Kandy Kolored, etc. book, a Herman Wouk novel, some Bultmann on New Testament, a book on Buddhism, Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, a couple of pages of Aeschylus, and Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris.) Got some work done–finished the galleys of Seasons of Celebration and made a few additions. Revised the bit on Schema 13. About this I got a good letter from Archbishop Flahiff who sent the new texts of the Articles on war.

  Sister Colleen lovely and friendly and Sister Franciscana the Superior super kind and very sweet, bringing in newspapers and even a box of candy. The sisters and nurses were lovely, through and through, so I enjoyed so much “tender love and care.” I admit it! Tried to keep my presence quiet but Dr. Bizot was lector at my Sunday Mass, Jack Ford came in, Dr. Roser, etc.

  Today drove home with Jim Wygal through winding county roads, Taylorsville, Bloomfield, etc. after a good dinner at the Old Stone Inn out beyond Anchorage (Simpsonville or some such name). It was awfully good to get back to the silence of the monastery and especially of the hermitage (freshly painted by Brother John of the Cross to fill in all the cracks).

  Two weeks until the big change!

  August 10, 1965. St. Laurence

  The days since returning from hospital have been difficult. My stomach continued to be upset for a couple of nights. Had trouble readjusting to normal after a week of strong medicine and sleeping pills. Letters to write. Awareness that I cannot catch up with the backlog of mail. Proofs of Chuang Tzu suddenly came (an absurd accumulation of books this Fall, this must be straightened out). Because Gandhi was delayed, three books are scheduled for publication in four months. Farrar, Straus and Giroux wants to bring out Seasons of Celebrations early in December. I think Chuang Tzu ought to wait until spring!

  The solitary life: now that I really confront it it is awesome, wonderful, and I see I have no strength of my own for it. Deep sense of my own poverty, and above all, awareness of the wrongs I have allowed in myself together with this good desire. This is all good. I am glad to be shocked by grace and to wake up in time to see the great seriousness of it. I have been merely playing at this, and the solitary life does not admit of mere play. Contrary to all that is said about it, I do not see how the really solitary life can tolerate illusion and self-deception. It seems to me that solitude rips off all the masks and all the disguises. It does not tolerate lies. Everything but straight and direct affirmation is marked and judged by the silence of the forest. “Let your speech be Yea! Yea!”

  (I am frightened by the awful clarity of Anselm’s argument in De Casu Diaboli. A view of liberty that is essentially monastic, i.e., framed in the perspective of an entirely personal vocation and grace.) The need to pray–the need for solid theological food, for the Bible, for monastic tradition. Not experimentation or philosophical dilettantism. The need to be entirely defined by a relationship with and orientation to God my Father, i.e., a life of sonship in which all that distracts from this relationship is seen as fatuous and absurd. How real this is! A reality I must constantly measure up to, it cannot be simply taken for granted. It cannot be lost in distraction. Distractedness here is fatal–it brings one inexorably to the abyss. But no concentration is required, only being present. And also working seriously at all that is to be done–the care of the garden of paradise! By reading, meditation, study, psalmody, manual work, including also some fasting, etc. Above all the work of hope, not the stupid, relaxed, self-pity of acedia [sloth].

  The great need to honor God by personal truth, and trust, in the personal grace of solitude. “…iustitia sive rectitudo voluntatis…. Hic est solus et totus honor, quem debemus Deo et haec est satisfactio, quam omnis peccator Deo debet facere.” [“…justice or the rightness of the will…. This is the sole and complete honor which we owe to God…that is satisfaction which every sinner ought to make to God.”]

  (Anselm, Cur Deus Homo? [Schmitt II, pp. 68–69])

  In John Wu’s Zen manuscript–this beautiful poem of Tung Shan.

  For whom have you stripped yourself of your gorgeous dress?

  The cuckoo’s call is urging all wanderers to return home.

  Even after all the flowers have fallen it will continue its call

  In the thicket of the wood, among the jagged peaks.

  August 11, 1965

  “When you are serving others you are apt to be a hypocrite; but when you are serving heaven it is difficult to be a hypocrite.” This is Suzuki paraphrasing a line of Chuang Tzu. It applies perfectly to the solitary life.

  However, I have been completing this kind of view with others, the clear, reasonable, logical yet mystical little tract of Catherine of Siena, Dialogo Breve sulla Consumata Perfezione (which actually comes to the same thing–seeking nothing but to do God’s will in everything, to please Him alone, to be perfectly united to Him in love by the renunciation of our own will). And Anselm’s rectitudo–stare in veritate [standing in the truth]. It all comes to the same, but the approach is different, and I am still strongly devoted to medieval reason and wisdom.

  August 12, 1965. St. Clare

  The one point on which I most profoundly disagree with the Barthians is that of “natural theology.” Our very creation itself is a beginning of revelation. Making us in His image, God reveals Himself to us, we are already His words to ourselves! Our very creation itself is a vocation to union with Him and our life, and in the world around us, if we persist in honesty and simplicity, cannot help speaking of Him and of our calling. But the trouble is that there are no “pure” natural traditions and everything gets overlaid with error. Still, there is truth there for those who are still able to seek it, even if they are few. Ought it to be called “theology”? That is a technical question. Certainly it implies–and can develop–a definite personal relationship to God in faith (of the P
roslogion). Barth’s interest in Anselm is very revealing.

  Yesterday, Father [William] Johnston, a Jesuit from Sophia University, Tokyo, was here, talking of Zen, Father Dumoulin, Father Enomiya Lasalle, etc. He brought a new book on Zen with a lot of rich new material in it ([Philip] Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen). I am slowly moving the mountain of books from the novice master’s room to the library (novices do the carrying).

  August 13, 1965

  The joy that I am man! This fact, that I am a man, is a theological truth and mystery. God became man in Christ. In the becoming what I am He united me to Himself and made me His epiphany, so that now I am meant to reveal Him, and my very existence as true man depends on this, that by my freedom I obey His light, thus enabling Him to reveal Himself in me. And the first to see this revelation is my own self. I am His mission to myself and through myself to all men. How can I see Him or receive Him if I despise or fear what I am–man? How can I love what I am–man–if I hate man in others?

  The mere fact of my manness should be an everlasting joy and delight. To take joy in that which I am made to be by my Creator, is to open my heart to restoration by my Redeemer. And it is to taste the first fruits of redemption and restoration. So pure is the joy of being man that those whose Christian understanding is weak may even take this to be the joy of being something other than man–an angel or something. But God did not become an angel. He became man.

  August 14, 1965. Vigil of the Assumption

  Yesterday I was busy most of the day trying to clean out novice master’s office, sort out what to keep and what to throw away, etc. And when I did get up to the hermitage for part of the afternoon, Brother Clement showed up, and stayed about an hour talking about his European trip (interesting! The Irish Derby–driving a Mercedes through Germany, traveling around Norway, etc.). The insane accumulation of books, notes, manuscripts, letters, papers in the novice master’s room simply appalls me. Trying to sort it out upsets my stomach. This is really a symptom of something–certainly of a kind of alienation. It is true most of it is stuff I receive gratis without having asked for it, and set it aside to read “sometime later”–and of course forget about it. Yet there is much I have asked for impulsively and got by pull from the publishers–and never read yet. This and the anxiety which tears my gut, and the writing of letters, etc., etc. is certainly a type of a real deep conflict, one I have not yet fully faced–a fear of being without support, substituting papers and books for personal relations, etc.