January 3: Great Ambition After Perfection, Secrets, Tell It Slant

More about Thomas Merton's parents . . .

It seems to me, now, that Mother must have been a person full of insatiable dreams and of great ambition after perfection:  perfection in art, in interior decoration, in dancing, in housekeeping, in raising children.  Maybe that is why I remember her mostly as worried since that imperfection of myself, her first son, had been a great deception.  If this book does not prove anything else, it will certainly show that I was nobody's dream-child.  I have seen a diary Mother was keeping, in the time of my infancy and first childhood, and it reflects some astonishment at the stubborn and seemingly spontaneous development of completely unpredictable features in my character.  things she had never bargained for:  for example, a deep and serious urge to adore the gas-light in the kitchen, with no little ritualistic veneration, when I was about four.  Churches and formal religion were things to which Mother attached not too much importance in the training of a modern child, and my guess is that she thought, if I were left to myself, I would grow up into a nice, quiet Deist of some sort, and never be perverted by superstition.  

My baptism, at Prades, was almost certainly Father's idea, because he had grown up with a deep and well-developed faith, according to the doctrines of the Church of England.  But I don't think there was much power, in the waters of the baptism I got in Prades, to untwist the warping of my essential freedom, or loose me from the devils that hung like vampires on my soul.

My father came to the Pyrenees because of a dream of his own:  more single, more concrete, and more practical than Mother's numerous and haunting ideals of perfection.  Father wanted to get some place where he could settle in France, and raise a family, and paint, and live on practically nothing, because we had practically nothing to live on.

Father and Mother had many friends at Prades, and when they had moved there, and had their furniture in their flat, and the canvasses piled up in a corner, and the whole place smelling of fresh oil-paints and water-color and cheap pipe tobacco and cooking, more friends came down from Paris.  And Mother would paint in the hills, under a large canvas parasol, and Father would paint in the sun, and the friends would drink red wine and gaze out over the valley of Canigon, and at the monastery on the slopes of the mountain.

There they are--Mr. and Mrs. Merton.  His mother, an idealist, striving always toward the possibility of perfection.  His father, more practical and realistic, wanting only a cheap place to live, work, and raise his family.  Of course, we all know that attaining perfection is impossible, unless God reaches down has a hand in it.  Being human means being imperfect.  We are all glorious messes.

These blog posts that I send out into the world every day are not meant to be sugar-coated portraits of my day-to-day existence.  My wife is not perfect.  My son and daughter aren't perfect.  I, most certainly, am not perfect.  For example, today I have been struggling with feelings of grief and anger and exhaustion.  The loss of my good friend has thrown me into a little bit of a tailspin in these first few days of this new year of this new decade of this new millennium.

Merton certainly doesn't shy away from his imperfections in his memoir.  In fact, most of The Seven Storey Mountain' opening is about him overcoming the demons of his past in order to fill the God-sized hole in his life.  Keep in mind, this Trappist monk wasn't a cradle Catholic.  On the contrary, he was raised by bohemian artists who, for the most part, shied away from the rituals of organized religion.

I pretty much try to follow Merton's example with this blog.  I tell the truth about my life, in all of its nit and grit.  However, I follow Emily Dickinson's advice:  "Tell all the truth but tell it slant--"  I can't and won't share all the details of my struggles, because they involve other people I love.  It is not my place to talk about their journeys.

So, let me tell you a slant truth this evening.  I cannot stand secretive people.  I don't like secrets, and I have a difficult time with anyone whose life consists of secrets.  In my dealings with family and friends, I am pretty much an open book.  If you care about me, ask me what's going on in my life, and I will pretty much tell you.  Secrets are terrible things.  They can make you crazy.  Engage in unhealthy behaviors.  Hurt people you love.  Drive you to drink, and then the drinking becomes one of the secrets.  It's a pretty vicious circle.

Thomas Merton had a secret.  He doesn't really discuss it fully in The Seven Storey Mountain.  Instead, he tells it slant.  You see, when he was a young man, Thomas Merton fathered a child.  He didn't marry the woman he got pregnant, and both she and Merton's child were eventually killed in the blitzkriegs of London during World War II.  This little secret almost kept Merton out of religious life.  It also was something he anguished over.  A lot.

See what I mean?  Secrets are terrible, destructive things to hold on to.  They can derail your happiness.  Alienate children.  Drive away friends.  End marriages.  Sever family ties.  Destroy homes.  I've seen it happen.  I'm seeing it happen right now.

I am still determined to make 2020 a better, brighter year, despite its rocky start.  I refuse to live another 2019, where secrets ruled and ruined my days.  Let me dispel some rumors.  I didn't have an affair or father an illegitimate child.  Didn't take up selling crystal meth like Walter White.  Didn't become addicted to pain killers or sleeping pills.  Didn't beat my children or wife.  Didn't rob a bank or desecrate a cemetery.  I didn't become a Trump supporter.

In the spirit of new beginnings and fresh starts this New Year's week, I will reveal one of my best-kept secrets.  One that I'm not really proud of.  One that could ruin a part of my life.  I will say it quickly, without comment.  Then, I will go to bed, unburdened, and sleep better than I've slept in months.

Here is the secret:  Saint Marty likes reading Fannie Flagg novels.

February 21: Tragic Wrath, Tell It Slant, Tear Down Walls

Weary was filled with a tragic wrath.  He had been ditched again.  He stuffed his pistol into its holster.  He slipped his knife into its scabbard.  Its triangular blade and blood gutters on all three faces.  And then he shook Billy hard, rattled his skeleton, slammed him against the bank.

Weary barked and whimpered through his layers of scarf from home.  He spoke unintelligibly of the sacrifices he had made on Billy's behalf.  He dilated upon the piety and heroism of "The Three Musketeers," portrayed, in the most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honor they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered for Christianity.

It was entirely Billy's fault that his fighting organization no longer existed, Weary felt, and Billy was going to pay.  Weary socked Billy a good one on the side of his jaw, knocked Billy away from the bank and onto the snow-covered ice of the creek.  Billy was down on all fours on the ice, and Weary kicked him in the ribs, rolled him over on his side.  Billy tried to form himself into a ball.

"You shouldn't even be in the Army," said Weary.

Billy was involuntarily making convulsive sounds that were a lot like laughter.  "You think it's funny, huh?" Weary inquired.  He walked around to Billy's back.  Billy's jacket and shirt and undershirt had been hauled up around his shoulders by the violence, so his back was naked.  There, inches from the tips of Weary's combat boots, were the pitiful buttons of Billy's spine.

Weary drew back his right boot, aimed a kick at the spine, at the tube which had so many of Billy's important wires in it.  Weary was going to break that tube.

But then Weary saw that he had an audience.  Five German soldiers and a police dog on a leash were looking down into the bed of the creek.  The soldiers' blue eyes were filled with bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh.

Whew!  That is a a long passage.  Weary beating the shit out of Billy after they are both abandoned behind enemy lines.  Weary blames Billy for their predicament, even though Roland's war fantasies are equally to blame.  Weary just doesn't understand how recklessly foolish he really is.  He's worse than a bully.  He's a former bully victim who preys on the weak.  Billy is the weak in Roland's eyes.

In the Untied States (typo intentional) right now, the Roland Wearys seem to be in charge.  Bullies abound, and the weak are huddling in the dark, waiting to be dragged into the light.  I try to avoid reading the news every 15 minutes, which is about how quickly new Executive Orders are signed and new violations of the U. S. Constitution are made.  I don't think I would be able to function if I read about everything happening in Washington D. C.

Poetry has become even more important since Donald Trump became President of the United States.  There's a reason why writers and poets have been imprisoned, exiled, and murdered in places like Russia and Chile.  Writers and poets speak the truth, and dictators and would-be dictators are threatened by the truth.  But poets keeps writing poems, despite some Roland Weary threatening to break their spines.

Poets talk about truth, but, as Emily Dickinson advised, they "tell it slant."  That's what makes poetry important in times of distress.  The stock and trade of poets is truth.  Emotional truth.  Intellectual truth.  Spiritual truth.  When I read a good poem, I have this feeling when I'm done that I have learned something important about myself or my life or my world. 

So, I think poetry is really important.  It's a way to shed light in dark places.  Give voice to the voiceless.  Tear down walls that are being built. 

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for poetry.