To be a prisoner of such a man and helpless to do anything about it is a real problem to me, and can hardly see what to do but accept it; but I have to accept it reasonably and naturally, not masochistically. The demonic thing about the situation is the real power of the sado-masochism that he injects into everything he says and does. It is really a terrible, defeating force. Life-defeating, depressing, hopeless – no wonder so many leave.
Fr. Flavian wants to go now and join Dom [Jacques] Winandy. I really can’t blame him, though it would be sad to lose one of the best monks in the monastery and one who really knows what a monk is!
February 27, 1966. 1st Sunday in Lent
I sing parts of Lauds and Vespers, and the Salve, and Antiphons of Our Lady. Great love for the Lenten hymns and antiphons – and for the old Lenten masses now gone. (Of course they can be said privately, but new masses are sung in the community – Sundays and weekdays too.)
Dom James, having said nothing of Norway, is to announce his plans (as ambiguously as he usually does) this morning in chapter. Some, including Fr. Callistus, who is slated to head the Foundation, think it may be put off and will not be this spring. No one knows anything definite yet.
March 1, 1966
As I vaguely suspected, the Norway foundation has been put off, more than that abandoned altogether. (Is there no possibility? I don’t know.) An experimental “new” type foundation was quietly and smoothly made in Denmark by one of the most progressive abbots in the order. Dom André Louf. Evidently he did not think this represented any kind of threat to Dom James (only six monks, small flexible foundation with new perspectives), but Dom J. took it as a betrayal and has been somewhat tragic about it. In fact it represents a big defeat for his conservative and rigidly institutional conception of monasticism, and at this I must admit I feel a certain satisfaction – though I am sorry the Norway foundation is off, as there were still certain hopes and possibilities, since young and alert monks were going on it and Bishop John [Gran] has broader views than Dom J.
Dom James may now attempt a foundation in Latin America and this in my opinion would be disastrous! There above all a new formula is needed and the “old” rigid, feudal, opulent type establishment is totally useless. Moreover the whole of Latin America is about to flame up in guerrilla wars. The U.S. was never more hated. Monks out in the country, with no awareness of the local mentality and problems, would be in the worst possible situation.
An ironic thought occurred to me: a sure way to make Dom J. take back any possible intention of a Latin American foundation – would be for me to show enthusiasm over it and ask to be sent there!
March 2, 1966
There is no question that the solitary life is fraught with problems and “dangers,” but on the other hand I see that it is necessary for me to meet these precisely as they come to me in solitude. They would take a different and perhaps, for me, non-negotiable form in community. At any rate things were never so clear. I see that it is to face what I cannot face that I am in solitude, and everything in my life is affected by the change – my ordinary anxieties, my writing, my attitude toward the world, my attitude toward myself, my work toward my spiritual goal – my life in Christ. Whereas in the community all this was still to a great extent separate, dissipated and confused, here I can see it all in one ferment of change, at times frightening, basically hopeful and alive – sometimes exciting!!
Writing for instance: for the first time I can see how this can be reduced to a “normal” and non-obsessive role in my life! And I face the prospect with relief and joy. In community, this was only a “worry,” abstract and non-negotiable. I was somehow condemned to an evasion which I now see to be futile and self-defeating. Here I think it can become once again fruitful – my work I mean, not the “obsession.”
Yesterday – more truly spring; and this is a spring dawn today, cold, but with birds singing. First time I have heard the whistling of the Towhee this year. And the cardinals up in the woods to the west. The promise grows more and more definite. I look up at the morning star: in all this God takes His joy, and in me also, since I am His creation and His son, His redeemed, and member of His Christ – sorrow at the fabulous confusion and violence of this world that does not understand His love – yet I am called not to interpret or condemn the misunderstanding, only to return the love which is the final and ultimate truth of everything and seeks all men’s awakening and response. Basically I need to grow in this faith and this realization, not only for myself but for all men.
To go out to walk slowly in this wood – this is a more important and significant means to understanding, at the moment, than a lot of analysis and a lot of reporting on the things “of the spirit.”
March 3, 1966
Yesterday was completely beautiful – especially the bright cool morning walk in the woods, cleaning up a fallen dead pine. The afternoon – quiet, did no writing work, only replied to Hervé Chaigne about my book in France Foi et Violence. (Additions made to it. The Simone Weil article, Schema 133 etc. I also sent “Blessed Are the Meek.”)
Today, warm, grey, went down early for Mass, took a hot bath in the infirmary and got into secular clothes to go to town for back X-rays. (Hand has been numb for some time.) At the U[niversity] of L[ouisville] library was really moved by parts of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (they certainly complete and deepen some of the things said about love – and criticized – in the Duino Elegies).
Got to the Medical Arts Building, and the X-rays showed up a real mess. A back operation is unavoidable, unfortunately.
Jim Wygal I found very depressed and even a bit maudlin. He has a real problem with all the patients he gets that are priests, religious, etc. A discouraging example of Catholic spirit!
Got home, back to the hermitage. Rain broke. I am up late. Rain poured, on the roof. I let the idea of the operation sink in, and I adjust to it.
March 5, 1966
Evening. Snowing hard. This morning I decided to try to clean up a little and leave the ground around the hermitage in relatively good shape – as I probably won’t be able to do very much work for a couple of months after the back operation! Burned some bush, and there were flurries of snow falling into the flames.
Going over the copy edited ms. of Conjectures [of a Guilty Bystander] for Doubleday. Am bored with it. When I read proof I am slightly more interested. I have seen enough of the ms.
The snow has stopped again. The full moon has risen in the blue, cold, evening sky. The snow all day, coming and going, falling and melting, has been March snow with dark scudding clouds and moments of brightness, and biting wind, and all the trees bending, and a fire in the fireplace.
A fine book on Creativity and Tao by Chang Chung-Yuan from McGill. (Took so long to get here it is already due back!)
My arm is painful. I can see the operation is needed (saw it in the X-rays!).
Tomorrow is already the II Sunday of Lent!
Dom J. is thinking of taking over the Spencer foundation in Chile. That is at least more reasonable than starting a new one, for instance in Columbia. I perfunctorily mentioned he might need someone who knew Spanish (myself). He was profuse in denying that he wanted me to go! Oh no, no, no, no!! And he said “The old hermit idea would come back again.” Come back? It has not left, and I hope it won’t! What else is there?
March 6, 1966. Second Sunday of Lent
Cold again. I took a good walk in the woods, watching the patterns of water in my quiet, favorite creek. Then walked up and down in the sheltered place where we used to go for Christmas trees, thinking about life and death – and how impossible it is to grasp the idea that one must die. And what to do to be ready for it! When it comes to setting my house in order I seem to have no ideas at all.
In the evening, stood for about 15 minutes on the porch watching deer etc. through field glasses. The deer – five of them, were out by the brush piles beyond my fence, barely a hundred yards – less perhaps – from the hermitage. Hence I would see them very
clearly and watch all their beautiful movements – from time to time they tried to figure me out, and would spread out their ears at me, and stand still, looking, and there I would be gazing right into those big brown eyes and those black noses. And one, the most suspicious, would lift a foot and set it down again quietly, as if to stomp – but in doubt about whether there was a good reason. This one also had a stylish, high-stepping trot routine which the others did not seem to have. But what form! I was entranced by their perfection!
March 7, 1966
Though the feast vanished from our Ordo I said the Mass of St. Thomas Aquinas, and wrote to [Jacques] Maritain.
Cold, sunny March day. Finished a very summary reading of the edited ms. of Conjectures. It seems to be a fine book – at least partly representing my right mind.
In the evening, saying the Hymn for Vigils, I was struck by the line:
Spes una mundi perditi. [Sole hope of the lost world.]
Whatever people may do or say, this seems to me fairly central in our Christian faith! The world is “lost” and has no hope but in Christ. Today they are turning it around, as if the world were the sole hope of the Church!
And Christ before Pilate. John 18:36: My kingdom is not of this world.
Certainly we must do what we can to live reasonably and decently and to provide for others the means of a truly human existence. Does “the world” suffice for this? Or is Christ the hope even of a human existence? On one hand we say the whole world must become “affluent” and on the other we find that the production of affluent society has become humanly meaningless.
I’ll stick to the Spes una mundi perditi.
March 8, 1966
The solitary life itself reduces itself to a simple need – to make the choices which constantly imply preference for solitude fully understood (better “properly” understood in relation to one’s capacity at the moment). I find myself confronted with these choices repeatedly – they present themselves in their own way, and what they add up to these days is the question of emotional dependence on other people, simply, collectively – the community, friends, readers, other poets etc. Over and over again I have to make small decisions here and there, in regard to one or other. Distractions and obsessions are resolved in this way. What the resolution amounts to, in the end: letting go of the imaginary and the absent and returning to the present, the real, what is in front of my nose. Each time I do this I am more present, more alone, more detached, more clear, better able to pray. Failure to do it means confusions, weakness, hesitation, fear – and all the way through to anguish and nightmares. It is not purely up to me to “succeed” each time. I cannot calculate the force of unidentified emotion that will well out of my unconscious. There are days of obscurity, frustrations and crises when nothing is straight. However, I know my aim and I try at least to meditate. Discovering how hostile I have been, how desperate, how mean and unjust. (For instance, today again it comes back to me that I had been unjust, suspicious and ungrateful to [Frank C.] Doherty, the Headmaster at Oakham, who had really been kind to me and concerned with my best interests. I could not believe him.)
So, when it comes to “preparing for death” – in my case it means simply this reiterated decision for solitude as the reality called for me by God, as my penance and cleansing, as my paying off debts, as my return to my right mind, and as my place of worship and prayer.
It was cold this morning – about 20 at sunrise, but warmed up to become a good, bright, spring day. I thinned out our young trees in the woods to the north of the hermitage – enjoyable work while I can still swing a brush-hook! Then in the afternoon Bro. Benedict, the orchard man, came up with a couple of walnut trees which we planted in the field. There are 5 pecan trees coming too. Proper for a hermitage, though I myself can’t eat many nuts on account of my stomach. Some other hermit in future years may perhaps profit by them. In the evening, at supper, read the little booklet on Ford Abbey that Etta Gullick sent.
March 10, 1966
I was going to finish cutting brush this morning, but it looks like rain. I’ll see. My back hurts anyway. I am to go into the hospital on the 23rd and apparently the operation is the next day. In a way I have not adjusted to the idea, and cannot fully do so. I distrust the mania for surgery in this country, though Dr. Mitchell is certainly a reasonable and prudent man and no fanatic. Also, I can see that the condition of my back is such that if he does not operate now, I will hardly be able to work with my arms and hands in a little while. (My hand gets numb fast holding a pen and writing a few lines.)
Still, having to undergo surgery is a kind of defeat, an admission that I have not lived right, that I have in fact been too much a prisoner of a very unreasonable culture. Honestly I think it is too late for me to escape the consequences, altogether. But I hope I can salvage something. My life in the hermitage is much saner and better balanced than it was in the monastery, my health is much better, I sleep well, have a good appetite, no colds, stomach a bit better. I suppose my eating is wrong.
When the operation is over, perhaps I can start afresh and really try to get everything in order. I hope so! But meanwhile I do not expect much help from doctors and their damned pills.
March 15, 1966
The Norway foundation is going to be made after all. Bishop John and the Bishop of Copenhagen decided that if there has to be a choice, the “experimental” foundations must go and the Gethsemani “establishment” style foundation must be made. A victory for Dom James’ conservatism and Americanism. But I still think there was no real need to regard Dom André Louf as a rival and force him out. The whole event is typical. But I do not criticize Dom James – his nature is what it is, and he must see things as he does. And he is the Abbot God has willed for me. Certainly in many ways he is “right” – he is at any event a success. He keeps order, and the abbey is prosperous, though many are unhappy and restless, and others still leave. But the crisis is universal and in the end we seem to be weathering it better than most. Suppose the next abbot is liberal and understanding toward modern problems – he may wreck the place or let it wreck itself by letting it go this way and that. Dom J.’s narrowness has some points, but in the end I think this community represents the past rather than the future. One always ends by realizing how many good people there are in it, how much honesty, how much sincerity, how much real desire for truth. With these signs of God’s blessing, one cannot render firm negative judgments on the place!
Then, in the end, I am grateful for being here, and accept the mystery of my vocation with all that disconcerts me about it, and hope to be faithful to it. And humble about it! For I know I will never have things exactly as I wish they ought to be – and as I would take pride in them.
If the community has failings, they correspond to my own failings and the limitations of the Abbot were chosen in view of my faults, sins, and limitations. I suppose that is why I am so sensitive to them!
After all, he has been patient with me, and kind in his own (political) way, and I do at least owe to him the fact of being here in a hermitage, which is amazing enough!
The Palomares incident makes me very sad. Two planes (SAC) crashed over this poor Spanish village, 4 H-bombs were lost, 3 were recovered. Of these 3, one or two had practically gone off (i.e. the conventional triggers had exploded) and there was radiation material all about. The crops and fish have been ruined. The whole place is being scoured and cleaned up. Dirt shipped to America. Some of the people contaminated. The village itself is economically ruined. Gets news about itself mostly from foreign radio. A typical incident, paradigm of an age, its gigantic and stupid anti-Communism.
In spite of myself, and with many hesitations, finished yesterday first draft of an article “Apologies to an Unbeliever” which I plan to send to Harper’s before going to the hospital. Why did I write it? I don’t know. Compassion for Victor Hammer, who is after all a very believing “unbeliever” and for so many others who have to be alone and confused, penalized for the sincerity which
prohibits facile options! Perhaps it was well that I wrote this. I must now go over it again.4
The danger of a nuclear attack by this country on Red China is very real. Of course there is a great deal of opposition to it. The majority of the people are humane enough to see the error and insanity of it – as well as its total uselessness, and the awful irresponsibility that would endanger people who are supposed to be our allies (Japan for example). Yet the opposition of the people is always a half-hearted thing, a question of feeling rather than of principle. Certainly this will not seriously hold anyone back if the Pentagon finally determines that the attack must be made. This criminal act of moral blindness is altogether possible. I do not know if it is likely at the moment, but any significant change can make it likely. And this calls for thought and decision on my part. An ordinary verbal protest means little or nothing. “Political” action on the scale possible to us these days is trivial. At best it salves one’s own conscience. Once again, I think of simply renouncing American citizenship etc. But that raises the problems of my being fixed at Gethsemani and so long as I am here it makes very little difference what country I am a “citizen” of. The situation has to be brought in the religious sphere, where it is less easily explained and where grace offers concrete suggestions. This remains a matter for myself and God, and He alone knows what will come of it.
Evening – mild. Fluffy cumulus clouds. A few small flocks of migrating birds go over, heading north. Buds are reddening on my maple saplings.
I finished, quickly, a preface for the Japanese translation of Thoughts in Solitude’s5 and certainly wrote it with more satisfaction than the article yesterday – and less trouble. Spanish translation of my existentialist piece, for Sur, came in. I will correct and return it. Ernesto Cardenal wrote that he is now on Solentiname, is clearing brush, and that there are plenty of mosquitos after all!
Learning To Love Page 5