May 29: Turned Into Grace, Primary Motivation, "A Question About Bigfoot"

Merton experiences major self-doubt . . . 

The blow fell suddenly. 

I was within a few weeks of entering the novitiate. Already I was receiving those last minute letters from the novice-master, with the printed lists of things I was expected to bring with me to the monastery. They were few enough. The only perplexing item on the list was “one umbrella.” 

The list made me happy. I read it over and over. I began to feel the same pleased excitement that used to glow in the pit of my stomach when I was about to start out for camp in the summer, or to go to a new school.... 

Then God asked me a question. He asked me a question about my vocation. 

Rather, God did not have to ask me any questions. He knew all that He needed to know about my vocation. He allowed the devil, as I think, to ask me some questions, not in order that the devil should get any information, but in order that I might learn a thing or two. 

There is a certain kind of humility in hell which is one of the worst things in hell, and which is infinitely far from the humility of the saints, which is peace. The false humility of hell is an unending, burning shame at the inescapable stigma of our sins. The sins of the damned are felt by them as vesture of intolerable insults from which they cannot escape, Nessus shirts that burn them up for ever and which they can never throw off. 

The anguish of this self-knowledge is inescapable even on earth, as long as there is any self-love left in us: because it is pride that feels the burning of that shame. Only when all pride, all self-love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments. It is only when we have lost all love of our selves for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or for the anguish of shame. 

For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God. 

It is the proud that have to be burned and devoured by the horrible humility of hell.... But as long as we are in this life, even that burning anguish can be turned into a grace, and should be a cause of joy.

Anguish that is transformed into a grace.  A cause of joy.  That's a very Flannery O'Connoresque statement.  It's sort of like the Misfit shooting the grandmother in the head at the end of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and then saying, "She would have been a good woman . . . if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life."  

Basically, what Merton (and O'Connor) are saying is that most of us go through life pretty self-deluded.  Our primary motivation is not the betterment of our neighbor or neighborhood or city or state or country or planet or universe.  Nope.  Most of us don't want to be bothered with true selflessness.  That would involve sacrifice.  Handing the reins over to something bigger than ourselves.  That's a pretty terrifying notion.

Think about it.  How much of what anyone does in a day could be categorized as selfless?  Yes, there are some vocations that lean in that direction.  Teaching.  Nursing.  Doctoring.  Ministering.  Pastoring.  But my therapist recently pointed something out.  We were talking about a particular life situation that causes me a great deal of heartache, and she said to me, "What do you get out of it?"

"What do you mean?" I said, a little indignant but sensing where the conversation was headed.

"There has to be a reason why you keep doing what you're doing," she replied, "otherwise, you wouldn't continue to do it.  There has to be some kind of payoff."

There it is.  The primary motivation for most people:  reward.  Money.  Prestige.  Power.  Fame.  Self image.  Benefits.  Vacation time.  I've worked jobs I've hated for the paycheck.  I've stayed in positions for the medical insurance.  And I've remained in painful relationships because, somehow, they reinforced certain roles in which I cast myself--victim, supportive friend and partner, selfless caregiver.

What Merton says in the passage above is that, until "all self love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments."  When does a person become a saint?  When the love of God and nothing else becomes that person's primary motivation.  That's a pretty tall order.  And very few people reach that point in their lives.

Most of us are in the process of becoming something better.  I would say that describes 99.9999% of the inhabitants of this little blue marble we live on.  You can be a vegan animal rights activist and still struggle with drug addiction.  Think River Phoenix.  A devoted disciple and friend and still deny God not once, not twice, but three times.  Think Saint Peter.  A  brilliant comedian and actor and still give into despair.  Think Robin Williams.  A nun who devotes her life to ministering to the poor and still not sense the presence of God.  Think Mother Teresa.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  The human condition is a mysterious thing.  Full of contradiction and impossibility.  One person born into poverty will end up in prison.  Another person born into poverty will become a saint.  And still another person born into poverty will end up in prison and then become a saint.

Tonight, Saint Marty embraces the mystery of being human.

And a poem about mystery . . . 

A Question About Bigfoot

by:  Martin Achatz

Do I believe in Bigfoot?
That’s not easy to answer.
It’s like trying to figure out
love after 25 years of marriage.
Does my wife still love me?
Do I still love her?
Will she meet someone
in the dairy section at Walmart
as they both reach for the same
half gallon of 1% milk and,
in that instant, lose that ineffable
thing that has held us together
this last quarter century? What’s
bound us to each other
like a filament from a spider’s
spinneret? What sets love
in motion then lights it on fire
until it burns down the way
a fuse on a bottle rocket does?
I guess what I’m talking about
here is mystery. I want to
believe in Bigfoot, that love
won’t fuse out, shoot into
heaven, be gone faster
than a startled rabbit. Because
really, what’s life without
mysteries? Just a half gallon
of 1% milk, curdled in the back
of the fridge, three months old.

January 5: Give Chase to the Leviathon, Mega Millions, Satisfied with Reality

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original- the Tyre of this Carthage;- the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones- so goes the story- to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,- So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the darkness towards the north with the darkness towards the south- wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular.

Ishmael misses the ship he was hoping to sail on.  He is very particular about how he wants to go to sea, doesn't want to whale from a New Bedford ship.  Nantucket whaling is what he has set his mind to.  So, he must wait.  Find somewhere to lodge until he finds a suitable Nantucket ship to crew on.

Like Ishmael, I am a little late to the game this morning.  Had a few too many errands to run.  That's why I am blogging at almost noon today.  It's strange how, even on a vacation, I tend to set up routines for myself.  Breakfast.  Kids to school.  Wife to work.  Blogging.  That's the way my mornings have been running.

However, this routine will be very shortlived.  Unless I win the Mega Millions lottery this evening--or the Powerball tomorrow night--I will have to settle back into my "normal" life on Monday.  That's rather depressing.  My only hope is for the one in 258.9 million possibility that I could become a multimillionaire either today or tomorrow.

Of course, Ishmael holds no fanciful ideas about life on board a whaling ship.  He knows it will be punishing work, will yield little real reward, aside from the salt air and the adventure of chasing a Leviathon through the ocean.  That's enough for him, though.  He's satisfied with that reality.

I have never found much solace in the day-to-day details of my jobs.  That's my own fault.  I have always had a spirit that is constantly trying to make things better, for myself and the people I love.  That's who I am.

I certainly won't find any solace on the Friday before the weekend before the Monday on which I return to my job.  But, I know that what I do is important to the patients I register, to the students I teach.  I am their element, their smiling face.  That's significant.

There's not much I can change about a person's medical problems or university education.  Both are going to be costly to the point of backbreaking, like shipping off on a whaling boat.  However, I can be a friendly face, a helpful guide and mentor.

But not until Monday.  I have three more days to be selfish.

Saint Marty is thankful this afternoon for the opportunity to be an introvert for a little while longer.