Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  Certainly I must expect this to come out in the hermitage (and I must not accumulate so much junk up here!!). But I know more and more, “in silence and hope shall my strength be” if I can only develop a silence of printed words, or words possessed and accumulated (mere shit). But the first step in this is to read seriously the good things that are there and when I do this there is an immediate change for the better, a sense of presence, a recovering of reality, etc. I shall not forget the awful, automatic worried routine of piling up books, sorting papers, tearing some up, mailing them out, etc. It is not finished yet.

  August 17, 1965

  Yesterday, finally, I practically finished cleaning out, sorting, throwing away, sending to library, etc., etc. I wonder how many wastepaper baskets I have filled in the last week? And with this absurd ritual of wastepaper has gone a rending of the intestines, diarrhea at night, angst, etc. The revelation of futility and interminable self-contradiction. What a poor being I am. If I try to conceive myself as, on top of all this, “being a hermit” absurdity reaches its culmination. Yet I am convinced that I am on the right way. That to turn back is infidelity and sin (there simply is no turning back) and that in all this is hidden joy. Nor is it always hidden because I experience it, and powerfully. Not only in the silence of the early morning but also in the hot, muggy afternoon which in these days is tropical.

  “Knowledge of the Spirit as Comforter adorns only the supreme points of affliction,” says Norossky. My supreme affliction is to see my unbelief, my distrust of the Lord, my refusal to let myself go in hope. But to see this at last is also a joy. And I can begin to hope He will cure and transform me. I got a very fine letter from Naomi [Burton Stone] in answer to one of mine admitting my own confusion and self-contradiction. Full of mature realistic understanding, and feminine comfort–the warmth that cannot come from a man, and that is so essential. Psychologically, my doubt is based in this giant, stupid rift in my life, the refusal of woman which is a fault in my chastity (and in the chastity of so many religious!). But I am learning to accept this love (of Naomi, for instance) even if it means admitting a certain loss. (Chastity is in fact my most radical poverty, and my un-poverty in accumulating things is a desperate and useless expedient to cover this irreparable loss which I have not fully accepted.–I can learn to accept it in the Spirit and in love, and it will no longer be “irreparable.” The Cross repairs it and transforms it.)

  The tragic chastity which suddenly realizes itself to be mere loss and fears that death has won–that one is sterile, useless, hateful. I do not say this is my lot, but in my vow I can see this as an ever present possibility. To make a vow is to be exposed to this possibility. It is the risk one must run in seeking the other possibility, the revelation of the Paraclete to the pure heart!

  August 18, 1965

  Yesterday morning there was a meeting of the private council, to vote to approve of Father Baldwin as the new novice master. Then I left and they voted (favorably) on my retirement to the hermitage. The first time such a decision has been taken in the house! At least as far as I know.

  In the evening at Vespers I realized again how much I will miss the sung office and the Gregorian psalmody, hymns and antiphons. Yet one must face the fact that the traditional office is over with, and will soon go, to be replaced by a new vernacular office. They may doubtless succeed in keeping a somewhat Gregorian spirit. I have an antiphoner in the hermitage, and can occasionally sing things that mean so much to me–for instance yesterday afternoon and evening I had the 1st-tone Magnificat antiphon for Easter Monday running through my head. Today, the Magnificat antiphon for Christmas Eve and the Christmas Invitatory.

  August 20, 1965. St. Bernard

  In Hebrews XI, after speaking of all the faith and suffering of former saints, the writer concludes: “All these having borne witness to the faith, did not receive what was promised, because God foresaw something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect” (11: [39–]40). Entering upon the new way, I think especially of this: that from part of the promise and fulfillment for which others have suffered and hoped: and in turn I will suffer and prepare the way for others. In leaving immediate contact with people and society I enter into this other close-knit society of witnesses. I am very aware of their presence.

  I go down to chapter for the last time (normally) and Father Timothy will preach his first sermon (then leave for Rome Wednesday). Brother Martin (Casagram) will make his stability. Dom James will announce the change of novice masters which is news to no one at all, and will make some remarks supposedly jocular and in some way political, to explain why a nut like me is allowed to live alone in the woods–but explain it in such a way that too many others will not be encouraged to follow suit. Meanwhile last evening he suddenly unloaded a rush job on me–writing a new postulants’ guide, and he wants to have finished copies from the printer “in time to send out as Christmas presents.” This presumably must be done without going to town or having reasonable contact with any printer except by mail??

  August 21, 1965

  The Chapter yesterday was not so bad. The day was a joyful one. A lot of gladness in the community, and most people seem pleased that I am going to live in the woods–for the right reason, I think–namely that it shows an opening up to the Spirit, an awareness of new possibilities and not just the evasion that condemned everyone to uniform and rigid adherence to one set of practices for all, meaningful or not. I gave my final official conference as Novice Master–but will continue the Sunday talks on monasticism.

  The day was cool and peaceful, but still there were things to be done at the last minute, transferring to Chapel in library, etc. for Mass, getting a hook in the washroom in that building, writing and receiving notes, arrangements about clothes (will wear the old robes that have been discarded in community. I don’t wear rags, but the robes that were replaced four years ago at Easter).

  This morning–grey, cool, peace. The unquestionable realization of the rightness of this, because it is from God and it is His work. So much could be said! What is immediately perceptible is the immense relief, the burden of ambiguity is lifted, and I am without care–no anxiety about being pulled between my job and my vocation…I feel as if my whole being were an act of thankfulness–even the gut is relaxed and at peace after good meditation and long study of Irenaeus ( Wingren’s book!) [G. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 1959]. The woods all around crackle with guerrilla warfare–the hunters are out for squirrel season (as if there were a squirrel left!). Even this idiot ritual does not make me impatient. In their mad way they love the woods too: but I wish their way were less destructive and less of a lie.

  “Ego enim sum Dominus Deus tuus, qui eduxi te de terra Aegypti: dilata os tuûm, et implebo illud” [“I am the Lord thy God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it”] Psalm 80 [81]. 80 is where I am in the Psalter, and there is no question that solitude gives a different horizon to the Psalter, precisely because [of] the light and nourishment one specially needs.

  August 25, 1965. Feast of St. Louis

  The five days I have had in real solitude have been a revelation, and whatever questions I may have had about it are answered. Over and over again I see that this life is what I have always hoped it would be and always sought. A life of peace, silence, purpose, meaning. It is not always easy, but calls for a blessed and salutary effort–and a little of this goes a long way. Everything about it is rewarding.

  My stomach trouble has cleared up (except that it may flare up again when I go down to the monastery for Mass and dinner, e.g. yesterday). Everything is falling nicely into place. One can live at a good, quiet, productive tempo–manual labor in the morning, writing in the afternoon. There is time for reading and meditation and I notice that the reading schedule simplifies itself and I want to spend more time on one thing. The dispersion and agitation of “those days” are settling of their own accord. Already the novitiate is becoming incredible (these las
t months there have not been reasonable, and the change is welcome). (I remember the novitiate of two–five–eight years ago as more “real”–the first year was a strain, as if I were playing some role I did not really want to play.)

  Getting down to the business of meditation and total silence. Realizing how little I really desire or need to simply “talk to someone”–certainly not for talking’s sake. It is good to go whole days without speaking, at last–without really seeing anyone except a Mass server and a few monks encountered on the way to Mass or in the infirm[ary] refectory. Yet I had a good talk with Dan [Walsh] yesterday (though for some reason Dom James has been engaging in some kind of political operation to determine whether this should continue. It seems he wants it to).

  Last week (the 20th, my first day here for keeps) I threw out some squirrel hunters. Thought there were probably no squirrels left anyway. This morning a beautiful, bushy tailed red-squirrel appeared on the porch and darted about before leaving. It was a delight to see him! How can they kill such beautiful live things!

  But Dan says that the war situation in Asia gets more serious all the time. I have seen or heard no news, but apparently the war with Red China gets closer and more sure, and one begins to feel the way one felt in 1939, about this time. So Dan says, anyway. I can believe it. This is a “safe” war–it involves no massive, sudden, nuclear exchange. On the contrary, perhaps China can be provoked into dropping an A bomb on a concentration of our troops–and then we can let go and give them all we have. What a monstrosity! All we need is this excuse, and we are clever enough to manage it, surely! I regret ever having voted for Johnson. I wonder what a man can do in such a society? Signing petitions and printing them as ads in the paper surely has outlived whatever usefulness it may have had!

  The blessing of prime under the tall pines, in the cool of early morning, behind the hermitage. The blessing of sawing wood, cutting grass, cleaning house, washing dishes. The blessing of a quiet, alert, concentrated, fully “present” meditation. The blessing of God’s presence and guidance…I am very aware of the meaning of faith and fidelity, and of the implications of the relationship they establish. This place is marked with the blessed sign of my covenant with Him who has redeemed me. May I never fail this goodness, this mercy!

  August 26, 1965

  There was a great deal of traffic in the air last evening and in the very early pre-dawn hours, mostly military (i.e., east-west. The commercial planes are north-south, here). Now before dawn it is quiet again, only a cricket sings innocently in the weeds. A great blue cloud stood for a while in the dimly lighted East, a cloud with a hole in it like an eye. Dark pines stood still and silent, outlined against the dim light. The mornings are wonderful. But when I go down to the monastery for Mass and dinner, everything is broken up and in the afternoon it is hard to get back into the charm and peace. Also it is hot, stuffy. Only late in the afternoon with psalms in the shade, does the full beauty of the place come back. Yet Mass in the Library chapel is good too. A bit disconcerted by Brother Lavrans’ ikon–the leaning figures–I miss Victor Hammer’s crucifix in the novitiate chapel. Already I think of a chapel up here, and think of spots where it might reasonably stand. But that is premature.

  Superb passage from Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, IV XXXIX.2. col. 1110):

  “Si ergo opera Dei es, manum artificis tui exspecta opportune omnia facien-tem…. Praesta autem ei cor tuum molle et tractabile et custodi figuram qua te figuravit artifex…ne induratus amittas vestigia digitorum ejus. Custodiens autem compaginationem ascendes adperfectum…. Facere enim proprium est be-nignitatis Dei, fieri autem proprium est hominis naturae. Si igitur tradideris ei quod est tuum, hoc est fidem in eum et subjectionem, percipies artem ejus et eris perfectum opus Dei.” [“If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time…. Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you…lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers. By guarding this conformity you will ascend to perfection…. To do this is proper to the kindness of God; to have it done is becoming to human nature. If, therefore, you hand over to Him what is yours, namely, faith in Him and submission, you will see his skill and be a perfect work of God.”]

  The reification of faith. Real meaning of the phrase we are saved by faith = we are saved by Christ, whom we encounter in faith. But constant disputation about faith has made Christians become obsessed with faith almost as an object, at least as an experience, a “thing” and in concentrating upon it they lose sight of Christ. Whereas faith without the encounter with Christ and without His presence is less than nothing. It is the deadest of dead works, an act elicited I in a moral and existential void. To seek to believe that one believes, and arbitrarily to decree that one believes, and then to conclude that this gymnastic has been blessed by Christ–this is pathological Christianity. And a Christianity of works. One has this mental gymnastic in which to trust. One is safe, one possesses the psychic key to salvation. Only Christ is the key, the way, and salvation itself.

  August 28, 1965. St. Augustine

  The days go by and I am beginning to experience the meaning of real solitude. It is certainly real enough now. I go down at 10:45, to say Mass, do necessary errands, have dinner, and come back. Most days speak to no one, see very few members of the community–and of course no one else. So I am beginning to feel the lightness, the strangeness, the desertedness of being really alone. It was far different when the ties had not been cut and when the hermitage was only part of my life. Now that everything is here, the work of loneliness really begins, and I feel it. I glory in it (giving thanks to God) and I fear it. This is not something lightly to be chosen, and unless I were convinced God had chosen it for me, I would not stay in it. There is an inner psychic strength and “fatness,” a good comfortable complacency of being, that comes with the presence and support of other people. With out it, one becomes innerly wasted. It is this “wasting” that I feel beginning, ever so little, and it is what I will have to bear.

  Yet I feel closely united to my brothers in this above all. It is as if I had taken their loneliness upon me, for some mysterious purpose, and I think I have assurance that many understand this and feel themselves concerned in it. Father Prior told me in confession yesterday that many were praying for me. Well, I must go ahead sensibly and quietly, without nonsense!

  A hard day, two days ago–clearing brush I ran into a hornet’s nest and was badly stung. Very painful, very “wasting”–ran to the house with hornets all over me, fortunately I pulled my blue denim work shirt up over my head or it would have been worse. The acrid smell of attacking hornets! One or two continued to hang around the house all day. It was very sobering! Reflected that this was due to the delusive impetuosity with which I work. This has to be changed! I must really be meek and nonviolent, but I see the roots of this are deep.

  Yesterday when I went down to say Mass, all the community, or a large group rather, were out gathering in the potato harvest under a blue, late summer sky, and I remembered the communal beauty of work in this season–the sense of brotherhood and joy when I used to go over with the students to cut tobacco twelve years ago! Or cutting corn in my novitiate, or the general corn husking that went on all through October when I was a student (and late into November even). Now that is all done by machine and there is little really common work outdoors. Anyway, I felt lonely, seeing them out there.

  Today–finished Wingren’s book on Irenaeus, which Brother Cuthbert had passed on to me. Some misleading theological statements in it, but the material from Irenaeus and its interpretation are in general magnificent. This is theology!!

  In the evening: this turned into a beautiful, clear, cool afternoon and evening. In the afternoon I finished a first draft for the Bible Today article (for their December issue)8 and had less trouble with it than I expected. I had been dreading it because I am no Bible scholar. But if they wanted technical competency they would not have asked
me. After supper I walked outside the gate to the hermitage enclosure and said some Psalms, read and meditated a bit looking out over the bottoms and across at the green cool line of hills. It all came alive (as it all should be) and I realized then that I had been running the risk, these past few days, of tying myself down with a mental delusion–taking the hermitage too seriously, and myself with it–identifying myself with this stupid little cottage as if my whole life was bound up with it. What total absurdity! Looking at the hills and recovering the freedom of true prayer (of which incidentally I have had so much in the hermitage too), I realized that what is important is not the house, not the hermit image, but my own self and my sonship as a child of God. It is good to see that things which are supposed to be media between ourselves and Him so easily get in the way and become obstacles. I am determined not to fool myself with any such nonsense. My first obligation is to be myself and follow God’s grace and not allow myself to become the captive of some idiot idea, whether of hermit life or anything else. What matters is not spirituality, not religion, not perfection, not success or failure at this or that, but simply God, and freedom in His Spirit. All the rest is pure stupidity. How often I saw this last year and before, just coming up for the afternoons–because then I was non-attached, non-identified, and the hermitage was a kind of nowhere. Now the terrible thing is that it has become a very definite home. But since I am a homeless body, being tied to a home disturbs me. But I am sure with God’s grace this will all settle itself, and I can treat the place as any other hole in the wall that is “not mine.” Though I must admit that it is full of a lot of books and nonsense. Here is where I think fasting will be important. Simplifying the meals I take here has already been quite a help. All that cooking of rice and cream of wheat, etc. which I won’t scruple to use in cold weather.