Dancing in the Water of Life

by Thomas Merton

  4. By correspondence can get good idea of their difficulties and so on.

  5. Possibility of change here after Norway foundation. Suggestion–that they apply to Rome only in mid 1967.

  Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for justice…

  Ernesto Cardenal is here, talking of his foundation–and his desire to have me there (October 1965).

  First–facts.

  1. The really unusual and I think inspired movement among influential lay intellectuals who desire a contemplative community in Nicaragua–sense of terrible need for such a community and such a life in the Latin American Church.

  2. They are willing to make great sacrifices and do extraordinary things to get this going–their hearts are very much in it. Certainly the Holy Spirit is breathing here and it is a work needed by the Church.

  3. They have repeatedly tried to get a foundation made from Gethsemani and failed.

  4. Ordinary Trappist foundations do not do well in Latin America.

  5. More a need of a new kind of community-something more like the Little Brothers–and founded, as this will be, by people of the country.

  6. May need someone to direct and instruct them and they want me. As far as I am concerned I think I must accept–though I doubt if there is any possibility of getting permission to go.

  7. They are willing to go so far as to send a delegation to the Pope himself to get his personal approval. Is this the best way? It is the only way left that might work. Personally I believe Dom James Fox, in his obsessive refusal of everything like this, is stifling the Spirit.

  What would be my part in the project if I went?

  1. To have a hermit and contemplative life while also acting as Spiritual Father.

  2. To give direction and occasional conference on monastic life, asceticism, etc.

  3. Occasional conference to retreatants, and to help with direction of poets, etc. who would come.

  advantages–

  1. Participation in a work inspired by the Holy Spirit in response to a call of charity from a church needing this kind of service, in the love of Christ–to bring something more of His word to them. (As opposed to being simply held in cold storage here, to preserve static “image” of this community–though I have a happy, comfortable, quiet life in the hermitage) love–true agape, first and principal advantage.

  2. Exile–poverty–solitude–risk greater simplicity.

  3. Flight from the wrath that is to come!!

  4. Contact with abandoned and primitive people–reparation for sins of colonialization and injustice to the Indians, etc.

  “Notre tâche consiste uniquement a travailler à la réalisation de la forme divine en nous livrant à elle. Nous n’avons pas besoin de nous débattre, de nous contrôler sans cesse, de faire toujours de nouveaux projets, de poursuivre constamment de nouveaux buts. Nous ne trouverons jamais le repos, mais bien au contraire nous serons acculés au désespoir.” [“Our task consists solely in working to realize the divine form by turning ourselves over to it. We do not need to be always striving, always checking to see how we’re doing, always creating new projects, always pursuing new goals. Along this path we shall never find rest; on the contrary, we will find ourselves backed up against despair.”]

  Casel. Cf. Matthew 6:27, 32–34

  “S’abandonner à Dieu, remplir la mesure de Dieu, done s’enraciner en lui tout entier, voilà ce qui conduit a la vraie perfection…. Nous prouverons que nous sommes ressemblants a Dieu si justement nous ne faisons pas de puis a la manière des hommes, si nous ne comptons pas sur nos propres oeuvres…. Nous aurons à nous laisser former a la mesure incommensurable de Dieu…dont les profondeurs échappent a toute mesure.” [“To abandon oneself to God, to fill the measure of God, therefore to become wholly rooted in him: this is what leads to true perfection…. We will prove that we are in the likeness of God precisely if we do not make any change in the manner of men, if we do not count on our own works…. We will have to let ourselves be formed according to the incommensurable measure of God…whose depths escape every measure.”]

  Casel

  NB. The Prodigal story in Rilke obviously has no religious intentions. Hence there is no point in complaining that he debases the Gospel parable. Simply starting from the Parable he retraces the ideas in a purely human and psychological project, an existentialist apprehension of man’s being as an object, as Dasein. And the weaknesses of existentialism are evident here. Still the insight is valuable. That the whole question of reconciliation of God our Father is entirely different and deeper question. However, it does affect our relation with other men.

  I gave advice to the novices and monks about Rilke (about reading direct without afterthought). I can take my own advice reading his story of the Prodigal at the end of Malte [The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge]. Must one make frightful noises over this story? Stop it from getting in the windows, or doors, or even on the porch-leave it outside with a disgraceful tag on it? Or risk understanding it? Why does everyone immediately see in such stories only something to excommunicate? It seems to me this Prodigal has something to be remembered, something to start from, simply because we have it in us. Why not recognize what is ours and start from there–why excommunicate ourselves, for sheer fear of being excommunicated by them?

  Maybe the Prodigal had a real need of communion–too pure a need perhaps–and perhaps it turned to evasion. Others were at fault also. It is true Rilke never grew up. But then, what are all the noises people make today about being “grown up”? Look at them!

  “Tous ceux qui portent en eux le témoignage que jésus a donnéde Dieu et de lui-même et qui en font leur propre témoignage, sont des prophètes: Dieu habite en eux et leur bouche dit les paroles de Dieu.” [“All those who bear within themselves the witness which Jesus bore to God and to himself, and who make of this their own witness, these are prophets: God dwells in them and their mouth speaks the words of God.”] Casel

  The more I think of this truth the more I think also of my own fallibility, of man’s fallibility and of the untrustworthiness of human causes. In all humility and fully conscious of my limitations I must listen to His Word and respond as fully as I can without imposing upon it a further direction, the orientation of a human and political plan. The answer is not the “plan,” but Christ. Yet one may work with a plan as long as it is not opposed to Christ.

  The problem of psychedelics–questions of “consciousness-alteration” as an end in itself (?). My stand on this (provisionally) is that of St. John of the Cross on all questing for “experiences.” Not drugs but night, not visions but nada [nothing]. Psychedelics resulting in part from a too rigid use of Zen koans–an efficacious means to enlightenment. Once this principle is admitted, then, if there is a quicker, cheaper, easier means…

  How true it is that I think with my hands. Jotting things down, writing and rewriting, Drawing (not often). If I had a piano…yet I think I tend to use music as non-thinking. Perhaps I write to slow down my reading and reflect more. In the hermitage I read much more slowly, take more time, cover less ground. In the morning, with two and half hours of reading, I still read very little, and the time is gone like a half hour. There is no quantitative estimate of this time. It is simply a “period of reading” with its own quality.

  Need to avoid quick judgments, “imprinting” final conceptualizations and decisions. Leave the mind open and fallow, to receive other seeds later perhaps. Another advantage of solitude and not an advantage.

  Schwatzbedürfnis1 of the solitary–singing, talking, etc. Pleasant, like a bird maybe. Free, idiotic. To indulge one’s own idiocy without fear of criticism–what a luxury.

  Dreams–Night of Saturday-Sunday (Fourth Sunday of Advent, 1965), I have a little water or “coffee”–in a bowl. By stirring it, perhaps it will be drinkable coffee. I stir it, but is like lukewarm muddy water to look at and there are insects in it, which I can pick and throw out. But I see really I must find fresh water and make new coffee.

&n
bsp; “Je lis, j’écris, je voudrais un silence encore plus profond et la solitude, même douloureuse, avec Dieu.” [“I read, I write, I would like to have an even deeper silence, and solitude, even painful, with God.”]

  Abbé [Jules] Monchanin, December 1941

  “To complete at a stroke the task that was ordained from the center of my heart…” Rilke

  That is what I am beginning to see for myself, but only beginning. My running after “causes” has been a delusion, though some things had to be said. He [Rilke] worked harder and more honestly than I have ever begun to, to hear the orders coming from the center.

  My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet), it is basically to praise God out of an inner center of silence, gratitude and “awareness.” This can be realized in a life which apparently accomplishes nothing. Without centering on accomplishment or non-accomplishment, my task is simply the breathing of this gratitude from day to day, in simplicity, and for the rest turning my hand to whatever comes, work being part of praise, whether splitting logs or writing poems, or best of all simple notes. And there will remain occasional necessary letters.

  A purely Rilkean solitude would be the worst of temptations for me (because so easy to yield to!). It is as a protection against this that I have my present cross and trouble (about Peace movement).

  If everything centers on my obligation to respond to God’s call to solitude, this does not mean simply putting everything out of my mind and living as if only God and I existed. This is impossible anyway. It means rather learning from what contacts and conflicts I still have, how deep a solitude is required of me. This means now the difficult realization that I have relied too much on the support and approval of others–and yet I do need others. I must now painfully rectify this. That is to say–there is a sense in which some of god’s answers must come to me from others, even from those with whom I disagree, even from those who do not understand my way of life. Yet it would be disastrous to seek merely to placate these people–the mere willingness to do so would make me deaf to whatever real message they might have. To do this job rightly is beyond my power. Prayer is all I have left–and patient, humble (if possible) obedience to God’s will. One thing is certain–I do not possess my answers ready at hand in myself. (It almost seems an axiom that a solitary should be one who has his own answers…) But I cannot simply seek them from others either. The problem is in learning to go for some time, perhaps for long periods–with no answer!!

  December 2, 1965

  Yet there is the problem of the climate of pseudo-charismatic action in politics now. Reason is irrelevant, what one must do is follow this or that movement which incarnates “the Spirit.” Not to listen to the consensus, not to reverberate properly, is to be relegated to outer darkness. This kind of irrationality ends in wild symbolic action and immolations. That is why I want none of it, and will be very circumspect about listening to prophets or wanting to be one.

  December 4, 1965

  One of the trouble spots–my afternoon work–(the time to write, etc.). When I am trying to finish something I am too full of passion–and when I am not driving into something full-force I feel guilty and restless. Yet if I take time simply to study and prepare work quietly, with moments of meditation, the afternoon is well spent and fruitful, and I really enjoy it too. This is what I need more of. Work in which I am aware that I am in silence. When I am driving at it, I would not know I was in a silent and solitary place.

  Absurdity of the Robinson-Cox God-is-dead secular-city theology with simply being in the news in the most superficial possible manner. Well, they are in the news. An essentially ephemeral and pointless theology, but in the present sense contemporary. A theology of pure distraction, gossip, unadulterated by reflection.

  Proposing to myself more and more seriously a year of silence and study to prepare for a book on spiritual experience. More than a year. (Probably have to write occasional essays and reviews. Poems would not be excluded.) Now I reflect–an important aspect of this would be finally opening up to science, to the scientific outlook (in which silence will always be imposed by my ignorance). Here–a kind of humility, very important, which I have neglected. December 13.

  “Et semper ex intimo pectore corde et vi peccatores et paenitentes nos esse prof-iteamur ne de aliqua re quamvis in nobis pia videatur, in elatione extollamur; sed nostra et aliarum deflemus peccata, quoniam propterea abiecimus mundum et ad hunc devenimus locu.” [“Let us always confess from our innermost breast, heart and strength that we are sinners and penitents, lest we be puffed up with pride at seeing some sign of piety in ourselves; but let us rather weep for our own and others’ sins, because this is why we renounced the world and came to this place.”]

  Blessed Rodolfus, Consuetudines Camaldulenses [Customs of the Camaldolese]

  “Humanity is asleep, concerned only with what is useless living in a wrong world. Believing that one can excel: this is only habit and usage, not religion…. Do not prattle before the people of the path, rather consume yourself. You have only perverted knowledge and religion if you are upside down in relation to reality. A man is wrapping his net around himself. A lion (the man of the way) bursts his cage asunder.”

  Sanai (an Afghan Sufi), Twelfth century A.D.

  “…être efficace pour l’autre par son silence.” [“…to be efficacious for others through one’s silence.”] Evdokimov

  “Acquiers la paix intérieure et une multitude d’hommes trouveront leur salut auprès de toi.” [“Acquire interior peace and a whole host of men will find their salvation in you.”] Saint Seraphim de Sarov-in Evdokimov

  “A work of art is good only if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies its judgment. There is no other.” Rilke. Applying this to my own books–whether they are works of art or not: I would say the following came from a kind of necessity. Chuang Tzu–Guilty Bystander–Some of the poems in Emblems–Philosophy of Solitude in Disputed Questions–Thoughts in Solitude–Sign of Jonas. Seven Storey Mountain–Thirty poems. And that’s about it. The rest is trash. So is this too in a way. Or rather the rest is journalism. I would say the writing on Zen was “necessary” too. And some of Behavior of Titans. December 18.

  Abba Arenius. “The monk is a stranger in a foreign land; let him not occupy himself with anything and he will find rest.”

  Searchable Terms

  Abandonment

  Abbot, Father. See Dom James

  Abbots meeting (1964)

  Abelard

  Abstract drawings (by Merton)

  Action: ambivalence of obedience as; inherent failure of; prayer vs.; relations with sin and death

  Adam

  Addams, Charles

  Aden Arabie (Nizan)

  Aelred [Graham], Dom

  African Genesis review

  Age of Reason (Sartre)

  Alabama people

  Alawi, Ahmad al

  Alberic, Brother

  Albigensians

  Alcuin, Brother

  Alienation

  Allchin, Arthur MacDonald

  All Saints (1965)

  Ambrosian chant

  America: civil rights in; consciousness of; divine mission belief of; idiots running; problems of non-violence in

  Americanization of Europe

  Ammonas, Abbot

  Andrade, Jaime

  Andrew, Father

  Andrews, E. D.

  Angela [Collins], Mother

  Angels of nations

  Anselm, Father

  Anselm, St.

  Anti-Plato

  Antoninus, Brother [William Everson]

  Apology to the Iroquois (Wilson)

  Arendt, Hannah

  Arnold, Eberhard

  Art

  Artistic style

  “Art of Solitude, The” (Merton)

  Art and Worship (Merton)

  Ascension mystery

  Ascent to Truth, The (Merton)

  Ascetic
ism

  Ash Wednesday (1965)

  Astronaut wives

  Augustine, St.

  “Augustinian turnabout,”

  Auschwitz

  “Autumn Day” (Rilke)

  Axioms

  “Babi Yar,”

  Baldwin, Father

  Baptism

  Baptism anniversary (Merton’s)

  Baptists

  Barth, Karl

  Bartholomew, Brother

  Barth’s Dream. See Conjectures of a Guilty; Bystander (Merton)

  Basil, Brother [McMurry]

  Baudelaire, Charles Pierre

  Bea, Cardinal

  Beast

  Beauty of earth

  Beauvoir, Simone de

  Bede, St.

  Belief in God

  Bellarmine College

  Benedictine Order

  Benedictines: A Digest for Moderns, The (Knowles)

  Benedictine, The (Morin)

  Benet [Leo Denoncourt], Brother

  Bennett, Tom

  Beran, Cardinal [Josef]

  Berenson, Bernard

  Bernanos, Georges

  Bernard, Father

  Bernard, St.

  Berrigan, Dan

  Berrigan, Phil

  Berrigans

  Berryville (Holy Cross Abbey, Virginia)

  Bible

  Bible Today article (Merton)

  Biot, François

  Birmingham: church bombings in; National Guardsmen in

  Birth control

  Birthday (Merton’s 50th)

  Blackham, Harold John

  “Black Mother” dream

  Black Revolution, The (Merton)

  Blessings (end of 1965)

  Blood from the Sky (Rawicz)

  Bloy, Léon

  Boasting

  Body

  Bolshakoff, Serge

  Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

  Bonnemaman (Merton’s grandmother)

  Boone, Andy

  Boone, Daniel

  Borgstedt, Father Gregory

  Braque, Georges

  Breathitt, Edward

  Brecht, Bertolt

  Brodsky, Joseph

  Brown habits

  Bruderhof communities