A good day to begin saying the Advent Office, dark, rainy, windy, desolate.
December 7, 1967
The last four or five days have been quite fantastic: among the most unusual in my life. I hardly know how to write about them. There should be a whole new key-and a kind of joy unusual in this journal-where lam usually diffident and sad.
I have to change the superficial ideas and judgments I have made about the contemplative religious life, the contemplative orders. They were silly and arbitrary, and without faith.
The retreat, or meeting, or whatever you want to call it, with the fifteen contemplative nuns who were here from Sunday evening (December ) on has been a wonderful thing. Much more than I expected.’
First of all-their obvious quality. All of them-or almost all-real contemplatives, and were really human (all of them certainly that)-completely simple, honest, authentic people. I have never before had such a sense of community with any group-including when Sr. Luke’ and Sr. Jane Marie came over from Loretto-and two of our own monks, Br. Maurice and Br. Wilfrid up here this morning for Mass. Mass at the hermitage today was unutterably good, something I simply can’t articulate. People who should have been undisposed finding themselves completely united-for instance as we ended up singing “We Shall Overcome” with a sense that our own revolution was well under way! Sounds silly enough. But it was very real.
Sitting together in silence after Communion, with the rising sun shining into the cottage, was indescribably beautiful. Everyone so obviously happy! I was tired only on the first day. After that it was all easy.
I’d like to write about them all-but perhaps shouldn’t try. But I do feel very close to all of them-with each in some special way. A sense of awe and privilege at being able to come together with such people.
7 This first of two retreats given at Gethsemani by Thomas Merton in 1967 and 1968 was organized by Sr. Elaine Bane, a Franciscan from Allegany, and included a group of Carmelite prioresses, a few Poor Clares, and several other contemplative religious women. The conferences were taped, later transcribed and edited by Sr. Jane Marie Richardson, a Sister of Loretto, and published as The Springs of Contemplation by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in ’992. It was reissued in paperback edition in 1997 by Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, IN).
8 Sr. Mary Luke Tobin, a Sister of Loretto, Nerinx, Kentucky, was the only American woman observer at Vatican II. Between sessions she returned from Rome to Kentucky and usually conferred with Merton and several other monks of Gethsemani who were interested in this momentous council of the church.
First of all Sr. Elaine Michael [Bane] from the OSF at Allegany. Intelligence, earnestness, response—someone you enjoy working with (we organized this together).
The two Passionists from Scranton—Sr. Elizabeth, Sr. Louise, both beautiful people (especially in their black habits), ardent, deep, articulate, contemplative, alive! Mother Jane from Jackson (Mississippi) Carmel—a very special person. All of them! Very impressed with Mother Francis Clare, of the New Orleans Poor Clares, also intelligent, witty, sharp, and a real mystic (though obese—as if that had anything to do with it!). Mother Agnes, the old, silent, little bent-over Abbess of the Poor Clares in Newport News, taking everything in bright-eyed. It all sounds silly, but they are all better than the best you find anywhere. Immensely encouraging, because they are what they are not just in spite of the communities to which they are committed, but because of them. I am completely confident in the contemplative orders once again. There is a lot that needs changing, but our life is fundamentally one of the soundest and most healthy things in the Church, and I am sure has all kinds of promise. It was a great help to me to see and experience this.
At Mass today: I opened with a prayer of Lancelot Andrewes instead of the Confiteor [I confess]. Sr. Elizabeth read the Epistle. We had a dialogue homily (first time for me!). Everyone joined in with petitions in the prayer of the people, mementoes, etc. Afterwards—another prayer of Lancelot Andrewes and a prayer from the Old Syrian Liturgy for hermits. Then we sat and had coffee and had a wonderful time. The hermitage is blessed with the memory of it.
These four days have been very moving and I feel completely renewed by them: the best retreat I ever made in my life.
December 9, 1967
Yesterday, Immaculate Conception [Feast], I was pretty tired. Went down to Concelebration, came back and lay down for an hour (sort of drugged sleep), then got up and went for a quiet walk and some meditation by the lake beyond St. Bernard’s field. Springlike sun. No one around. I needed the silence. Coming back—the small footprints of my nuns still in the mud of the road by the sheep barn. I remembered their happiness, especially when they were at Mass in the hermitage.
Today: grey morning. I tried to get some letters written. The “Cross Fighters” article came back from Harper’s and I sent it to Teo Savory.9 A letter from Dame Hildelith at Stanbrook. Lovely Shaker slides (Sabbathday Lake) sent by Bob Rambusch. The Carthusians are building a two-million-dollar charterhouse in Vermont (Jim Forest sent a clipping with sardonic comments).
Merrill Jackson arrived for dinner in a Louisville taxi. We talked a bit in the hermitage (he knew Malcolm X) and later went to Bardstown to get some cans of soup and replenish my supply. The taxi driver, very awed at having a famous passenger, had got six or seven copies of Seeds of Contemplation, which he had been reading while he waited. Found some potato soup with difficulty in the supermarket and when I opened it the can was labeled wrong. It turned out to be some kind of beef soup which I did not like.
I remember the Sisters leaving on Thursday-one car after the other and finally the green station wagon from New Orleans roaring off with Sister Kathleen at the wheel. Last I saw of her she was barreling down the middle of the highway.
I remember Mother Elizabeth and her black cape, Mother Louise and her black sweater: the firmness of our handshakes, the solemn promise of prayers. Sister Elaine Michael—my first sight of her sitting obscurely at the corner of the long table.
Really, it was wonderful to have them here, and to have such a perfect mutual understanding, such an atmosphere of unity and sense of realistic purpose: for once possibilities were not only hopeful but even realized, to some extent!
December 10,1967. Second Sunday of Advent
Rainy. Denise Levertov was here with Wendell Berry and Tanya and the Meatyards. They came up to the hermitage and spent the afternoon. I like Denise very much. A good warm person. She left a good poem (“Tenebrae”) and we talked a little about Sister Norbert in San Francisco who is in trouble about protesting against the war. Rather heartbreaking. Denise has had trouble with Eshleman too. We agreed about him.
I am hoping this next week will be quiet—a time of fasting and retreat. Too many people here lately. Also I need to get some work done.
December 12, 1967
After two days of wind and rain, a quiet, moonlit night. Fine clouds yesterday evening, piling up black out of the SW, and riding off in a line northward without coming over the monastery. High sweep of pink curves overhead. Then the black descended on us with dark and there was rain.
Today I got considerable work done-additions to Faith and Violence10 (Finally getting off the ground with this. Hope nothing else goes wrong after Notre Dame Press fell asleep on it.)
Doris Dana sent the Stephens book on Travels in Yucatan and I began it. A fine work! Great reading.
This afternoon I went to return the tray that Mrs. Gannon sent over full of doughnuts the day I had Mass with the nuns in the hermitage. No one there but Brother Pachomius. He said Leo [Gannon] had suddenly lost the sight of his left eye and was in Louisville seeing an eye specialist.
As I sat in the jakes after dinner with the door open as usual, I saw one, then two golden crowned kinglets playing and feeding in the saplings outside, flipping and hanging upside down and almost somersaulting in the air. Both males, with pretty bright crowns. Very dapper.
A handsome card, irises, from Masao Abe in Japan. The usual pre-C
hristmas mail—and a copy of Floating Bear, Diane di Prima’s little mimeographed magazine which is always good. Maybe I’ll send her something. This issue had something by Kerouac: I had forgotten his existence. And G. Snyder. And some Japanese. And even one by a computer at MIT which was not bad at all!!
I am sick of responding to requests for articles for this or that collection that someone is editing. Several times lately I have written such and heard nothing more about them. Wesley First and some Columbia collection. Msgr. Robert Fox and his East Harlem picture book. Ned O’Gorman. Even Ed Rice’s thing on monasticism. I must write him about it. [Bob] Lax is back at Olean.
December 14, 1967
On November 20 the population of the U.S. reached 200,000,000. Eerie business of watching this rise of the flood of people in the world! Only three countries have larger populations: China, India, USSR. The population of the U.S. has exactly doubled in my lifetime. It was 100 million in 1915. Expected to reach 300 million in 33 years—if present rate of increase continues. But it may accelerate.
In spite of left-wing enthusiasm for Che Guevara (“martyr”) and Regis Debray (“confessor”) the Bolivian guerrillas have clearly failed. The CIA, etc. too strong and too smart for them. Victory at once for Bolivian dictatorship, Washington Power and Official Russian and Maoist doctrines. The Bolivian Communists were not with Che and Regis—they are heretics. Nevertheless, in all this mess, they stand out as human beings one admires and appreciates (though not all Che did is exactly lovely perhaps). Hence I don’t take back my poem on Che (sent to London some weeks ago).
Yesterday—after confession a short conversation with Fr. Matthew [Kelty] about the coming abbatial election. Later, after dinner, Brother Job [Maurer) walked up with me to the hennitage to talk about his departure (soon), and while we drank some of his oversweet blackberry wine this conversation turned to the abbatial election too.
The following things seem to be crystallizing out:
1. Fr. Baldwin seems most likely to get it.
2. Even those who will probably vote him in (which I won’t) are not entirely happy about him. He is simply the one most likely to be tolerated by a majority. But tolerated grudgingly by many of them. Many would prefer Fr. Flavian [Burns], who knows more about what real monasticism is. Others are actively campaigning for Dom Augustine (of Conyers) but these are largely the people who want TV and summer vacations, baseball, swimming, etc. (which they may easily get out of Baldwin, in fact!)
3. Fr. Baldwin is Dom James’s candidate, and will perhaps let himself be dictated to by Dom J., at least on some things. Will most likely continue Dom J.’s policies in my regard! (Keep me quiet and immobile and out of monastic discussions as far as possible. Try to shut me up on war, race, etc.)
4. More important—Fr. Baldwin is the favorite of an immature, confused, feminine element among the younger (and not so young) members of the community. This is what I don’t like. It portends a kind of wishy-washy, indeterminate, superficial “togetherness”—a kind of monastic aimlessness and flaccidity, in which the place will rapidly lose whatever seriousness it still has left. In other words—with the hard-headed and single-minded obsessiveness of Dom James out of the way, the basic frivolity and unseriousness of so many of his monastic policies will come out fully in the open to be exploited by his little favorites under Fr. Baldwin. A rather sick and distressing prospect!
Is there any chance of Fr. Flavian getting it? Too many resent his “leaving the community.” His ideas are respected, and those who want a real monastic life will be readier to vote for him. Fr. Matthew has some good ideas, but is too volatile. He hasn’t a chance. Neither has Fr. Callistus, whom I respect: I am surprised that there is so little esteem for him. The other “strict” candidate is Fr. Anastasius. But he is so rigid, so emotional, and has so little imagination that he would probably be hopeless, and I think most people sense that.
The candidates I could in conscience vote for are Frs. Flavian, Callisttls, Eudes [Bamberger], Timothy (at Rome), Hilarion (hermit)—but of all these and others like them, only Fr. Flavian has any chance whatever.
The prospects for this monastery are not good: weakening, confusion, decadence, irrelevance. We are already well on the way, and even a strong, very definite and clear-sighted administration would have a hard time turning us back. Fr. Baldwin will never provide it.
December 15, 1967
Cold night. Full moon. Fasting has been good this week—though I have not gone very far with it I feel hungry (one solid meal a day—and small one: some soup in the evening). Book from Solesmes on Barsanuphius and John came to review. Began it, then walked out under the moon, impressed with it. And with the laxity of my own life this last year—and worse still in 1966! Perhaps things are slightly better, but I hope next year I can cut down on the visits and contacts. Some things are necessary (like the retreat of the contemplative nuns). Others are not—mere picnics, etc. Glad I cut off going to Willetts. That was really out of place.
I have begun, finally, to write the introduction to the Time-Lift Bible. It is due in two weeks, and I’ll never get it in by then. Great reluctance in getting down to it, but I am surprised to find that once I start it goes ahead pretty smoothly and I seem to enjoy it.
December 18, 1967
Rain yesterday and last night. I did not go down to concelebration and did not get out for a decent walk in the afternoon—but stayed close to the monastery, walked up and down by the woodshed, as when I was Master of Novices. So as to be near to give the conference.
At my conference I thought I owed it to the community to make a clear statement of my position on the abbatial election: and said I would not accept, in conscience, under any circumstances. I did not elaborate. There are probably a few people around who would vote for me—and more might if! were not a hermit. But I am enough of a maverick and an outsider to be safe. And most of them know how I feel without any need of announcements. But I thought it was best to be definite.
To tell the truth—I think the abbotship, at least as it is understood by the majority of Superiors in the Order, especially those of Dom James’s generation, is simply obsolete. It is ridiculous to carry on such a pointless charade. Dom James has emptied the whole thing of meaning, not because he was a “bad abbot” but precisely because, in the official mind, he was a “good” one. But even a “good” one does more harm than good: he hurts people and saves the institution. He can’t help using people—and Dom J. has certainly done that, without being altogether aware of it perhaps.
I refuse absolutely to go through this nonsense of being the “Master” and “Abbas” and “Dom” and running other people’s lives—or pretending to—and fighting their resistance, whether sane or neurotic. The worst of it is the constant struggle with those whose submission has to take the form of pseudo-protest: an exhausting battle of self-defeating complexes. That is about all the present set-up seems to be good for. Maybe Dom J. has got me so prejudiced I see it wrongly.
Incidentally, however, Fr. Baldwin is not J.’s candidate. I think Dom James would like Fr. Eudes to get it. Eudes is a better man than Baldwin-smarter. But he would rule. And that is bad. Baldwin will be less direct-a manipulator and wheedler. But in the long run perhaps the one most acceptable to the majority, easiest for them to bear with. In that case…OK!
December 19, 1967
Yesterday—went in to Louisville in rain and mist on the truck with George [Reiter] for a meeting at John Ford’s office, about policy for the M[erton] collection at Bellarmine (and the other collections). Paul Birkel, Betty Delius, Pat Oliver, Martha Schumann. It was pleasant in the office on the 9th floor of the Kentucky Home Life Building, looking out north over the river in the fog. I think we got quite a lot done, and all piled back into the elevator with a sense of achievement. We drove up the new river road and then to Bauer’s on Brownsboro Road-I had lunch with Pat and Martha, got some food at the supermarket, then over to Bellannine and did a little work in the M[erton] Room, organizing
and identifying material. Finally the sun came out. Marie Charron came (she had a tough time with the stencils of Journal of My Escape [from the Nazis]) and Tommie O’Callaghan with Colleen. Sat in the sun on the hillside waiting for George to come in the truck, and drove home, reading a xerox of the Colman McCarthy piece (heavily slanted) in N[ational] C[atholic] R[eporter]. This is not the right perspective either! Same schizoid active-contemplative split with emphasis on the active side.
When I got back, a pile of mail was waiting, with a Christmas card from one of the Shaker eldresses at Canterbury, N.H. and a nice message. Also a very favorable review of Mystics and Zen [Masters] from Hermes. Masui sent it in proof.
Reading Basho again. Deeply moved by the purity and beauty of his travel notes and Haiku.
The Other Side of the Mountain Page 4