It is the Christ of the Apocalypse, the Christ of the Martyrs, the Christ of the Fathers. It is the Christ of St. John, and of St. Paul, and of St. Augustine and St. Jerome and all the Fathers—and of the Desert Fathers. It is Christ God, Christ King, “for in Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead corporeally, and you are filled in Him, Who is the Head of all principality and power ... For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things consist ... because in Him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell... Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature...”1 “The first-begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, Who hath loved us, and washed us from our
sins in His own Blood, and hath made us a kingdom and priests to God His Father. ”2
The saints of those forgotten days had left upon the walls of their churches words which by the peculiar grace of God I was able in some measure to apprehend, although I could not decode them all. But above all, the realest and most immediate source of this grace was Christ Himself, present in those churches, in all His power, and in His Humanity, in His Human Flesh and His material, physical, corporeal Presence. How often I was left entirely alone in these churches with the tremendous God, and knew nothing of it—except I had to know something of it, as I say, obscurely. And it was He Who was teaching me Who He was, more directly than I was capable of realising.
These mosaics told me more than I had ever known of the doctrine of a God of infinite power, wisdom, and love Who had yet become Man, and revealed in His Manhood the infinity of power, wisdom and love that was His Godhead. Of course I could not grasp and believe these things explicitly. But since they were implicit in every line of the pictures I contemplated with such admiration and love, surely I grasped them implicitly—I had to, in so far as the mind of the artist reached my own mind, and spoke to it his conception and his thought. And so I could not help but catch something of the ancient craftsman’s love of Christ, the Redeemer and Judge of the World.
It was more or less natural that I should want to discover something of the meaning of the mosaics I saw—of the Lamb standing as though slain, and of the four-and-twenty elders casting down their crowns. And I had bought a Vulgate text, and was reading the New Testament. I had forgotten all about the poems of D. H. Lawrence except for the fact that he had four poems about the Four Evangelists, based on the traditional symbols from Ezechiel and the Apocalypse of the four mystical creatures. One evening, when I was reading these poems, I became so disgusted with their falseness and futility that I threw down the book and began to ask myself why I was wasting my time with a man of such unimportance as this. For it was evident that he had more or less completely failed to grasp the true meaning of the New Testament, which he had perverted in the interests of a personal and home-made religion of his own which was not only fanciful, but full of unearthly seeds, all ready to break forth into hideous plants like those that were germinating in Germany’s unweeded garden, in the dank weather of Nazism.
So for once I put my favorite aside. And I read more and more of the Gospels, and my love for the old churches and their mosaics grew from day to day. Soon I was no longer visiting them merely for the art. There was something else that attracted me: a kind of interior peace. I loved to be in these holy places. I had a kind of deep and strong conviction that I belonged there: that my rational nature was filled with profound desires and needs that could only find satisfaction in churches of God. I remember that one of my favorite shrines was that of St. Peter in Chains, and I did not love it for any work of art that was there, since the big attraction, the big “number,” the big “feature” in that place is Michelangelo’s Moses. But I had always been extremely bored by that horned and pop-eyed frown and by the crack in the knee. I’m glad the thing couldn’t speak, for it would probably have given out some very heavy statements.
Perhaps what was attracting me to that Church was the Apostle himself to whom it is dedicated. And I do not doubt that he was praying earnestly to get me out of my own chains: chains far heavier and more terrible than ever were his.
Merton is slowly coming to some kind of awakening. I always have to remind myself, reading this book, that it was written by a person who was already a Trappist monk and is viewing his childhood through that lens. Therefore, he sees every event of his life as a step leading to his religious conversion. Sort of like me viewing all of my experiences as steps on my way to becoming a poet. Merton and I each answered a calling.
Of course, life is not always easy. Merton's life certainly wasn't. Mine hasn't been, either. I've faced some pretty major struggles. Still am. And, like all writers and poets, I have taken those struggles and turned them into art. There is always truth in poetry. Emily Dickinson advised, "Tell all the truth but tell it slant." That's the real work for any poet (or writer): taking your life experiences (good, bad, indifferent) and finding something universal in them. Distilling them until all readers recognize themselves in your words.
Tonight, I'm sitting at my kitchen table, typing these words. My son is in bed. So is my wife. My daughter and her boyfriend are out with some of their friends. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Donald Trump is President of the United States. For the last year-and-a-half, I've been watching certain things in my life unravel. Things that I thought were unravelable. (I don't even think that's a word, but it should be.) Two years ago, I thought I saw my future clearly. Now, my crystal ball is a little foggy. And that makes me a angry.
I went to a graduation party for my daughter's boyfriend this afternoon. As a college professor, I love the unbridled enthusiasm for possibility that all young people have. They take classes/labs/workshops because they want to be mechanics and teachers and doctors and environmentalists. Literally, they are living in the future tense: I will be a lawyer. I will be a conservation officer. I will make the world a better place.
College-age students make great leaps of faith. They believe in the process of becoming. Me? I thought I had already become, that I knew who and what I was. I was wrong. I'm still becoming, however reluctantly. I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, and I can either jump with trust or live in fear and anger. My daughter's boyfriend is leaping. And that's a miraculous thing to behold.
Saint Marty gives thanks for his faith in the future.
. . . and a new poem about leaping:
Elephants Are the Only Animals that Cannot Jump
or, an Elephant Leap of Faith
by: Martin Achatz
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump, perhaps for the same reason they cannot fly: the weight of bone. They lumber place to place, heads down, think of all things they cannot do. They cannot play leap frog, celebrate leap year. Despise the TV show Quantum Leap and Little Orphan Annie with her "leapin' lizards!" Envy salmon their upstream leaps. Have never looked before they leapt, or leapt to a conclusion.
When Armstrong took his one small step, one giant leap, they made their way to a graveyard, stood among ribs of grandparents, aunts, uncles, raised their trunks to the tusk of moon, bellowed against the gravity of their existence, forever bound by toe and foot to mud, clay, clods of dirt.
At night, in their grief, they shudder. Snore. Dream of feathers, ibis, kingfisher. Feel a divine nudge to take one, deep elephantine breath, start to walk. Then lope. Gallop. Charge. Ears scooping, tails ruddering. Faster, Faster. Faster. Until--
It happens. Wind takes over, and they lift, rise, keep rising, great gray kites. They swoop, dip, circle. Up and up, to Aegean blue and light and sun. Like an exaltation of larks winging south, they grow small, smaller, smallest, vanish into a parade of ivory clouds.
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