It is true that the materialistic society, the so-called culture that has evolved under the tender mercies of capitalism, has produced what seems to be the ultimate limit of this worldliness. And nowhere, except perhaps in the analogous society of pagan Rome, has there ever been such a flowering of cheap and petty and disgusting lusts and vanities as in the world of capitalism, where there is no evil that is not fostered and encouraged for the sake of making money. We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.
Being the son of an artist, I was born the sworn enemy of everything that could obviously be called “bourgeois,” and now I only had to dress up that aversion in economic terms and extend it to cover more ground than it had covered before—namely, to include anything that could be classified as semi-fascist, like D. H. Lawrence and many of the artists who thought they were rebels without really being so—and I had my new religion all ready for immediate use.
Warning: I may sound like a socialist/communist in this post.
Merton has an intense distrust of capitalism. He pins all the ills of the world on the excesses of a capitalistic society. (I'm not too far behind him in this idea.) Of course, Merton hasn't found religion yet. Instead, he attaches himself to any belief besides the belief in God. It just so happens that his belief du jour is communism.
I think all young people go through periods where they try on different coats to see which one fits them best. I know I did. For quite a few years in college, I thought I was a computer programmer. Then, I studied fiction writing and was convinced that I was Flannery O'Connor reincarnated (a notion that O'Connor would have found particularly repulsive or hysterically funny--probably both). Then, I took a poetry class at the urging of one of my mentors at the university. I was hooked. I wanted to be Galway Kinnell and e. e. cummings and Sharon Olds and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Of course, having been a student of poetry now for over 25-plus years now, I know that I am NOT and will NEVER BE Kinnell or Hopkins. Sometimes, the best I can do is Helen Steiner Rice of Hallmark card fame. And that's okay. I have to learn to accept things as they are. Nothing I do can change the outcome of certain situations, no matter how hard I hope, pray, or work.
Tonight, I accepted some hard truths. These truths made me angry and sad and confused, all at the same time, anger being the dominant emotion. I'm still angry, but now sadness is taking over. I expect, near midnight, I will lapse into confusion and fall asleep in that mixed state.
It has been a very long year already. I expect that the next three months will be more of the same. Anger. Sadness. Confusion. My life isn't going the way I thought it would. In fact, it feels as if my life is going in the exact opposite direction I want it to go. And nothing I do or say can fix it. I simply have to watch it happen.
You see, a person I care about deeply has doused her life in gasoline and is about to strike a match. She is turning her back on every person and thing that used to mean something to her. I know that in the future, one or two or six or thirteen months from now, she's going to be filled with a whole lot of regret. By that time, it may be too late. Her kids will have lost faith in her love, and her spouse will be unwilling to be hurt again.
I have to accept all of that. Not easy for me to do. But my friend is hell bent of self-destruction. Nothing will change her mind. Believe me, I've tried. She's too far gone, and she sees nothing wrong in her current trajectory. Until she ends up alone on Christmas Eve or Day. A good possibility. Or until she gets sick, really sick, because of the choices she's making. Another good possibility.
Hard truths. Difficult to accept. But I have to. I will continue to pray for this person. Hope for this person. Love this person. That's all I can do through this dark night of the soul.
It's what God expects Saint Marty to do.
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