December 28: My Lost Identity, Some Beliefs, Hosting Poetry Readings

 Merton and looming war . . . 

The city felt as if one of the doors of hell had been half opened, and a blast of its breath had flared out to wither up the spirits of men. And people were loitering around the newsstands in misery. 

Joe Roberts and I sat in my room, where there was no radio, until long after midnight, drinking canned beer and smoking cigarettes, and making silly and excited jokes but, within a couple of days, the English Prime Minister had flown in a big hurry to see Hitler and had made a nice new alliance at Munich that cancelled everything that might have caused a war, and returned to England. He alighted at Croydon and came stumbling out of the plane saying “Peace in our time!” 

I was very depressed. I was beyond thinking about the intricate and filthy political tangle that underlay the mess. I had given up politics as more or less hopeless, by this time. I was no longer interested in having any opinion about the movement and interplay of forces which were all more or less iniquitous and corrupt, and it was far too laborious and uncertain a business to try and find out some degree of truth and justice in all the loud, artificial claims that were put forward by the various sides. 

All I could see was a world in which everybody said they hated war, and in which we were all being rushed into a war with a momentum that was at last getting dizzy enough to affect my stomach. All the internal contradictions of the society in which I lived were at last beginning to converge upon its heart. There could not be much more of a delay in its dismembering. Where would it end? In those days, the future was obscured, blanked out by war as by a dead-end wall. Nobody knew if anyone at all would come out of it alive. Who would be worse off, the civilians or the soldiers? The distinction between their fates was to be abolished, in most countries, by aerial warfare, by all the new planes, by all the marvelous new bombs. What would the end of it be? 

I knew that I myself hated war, and all the motives that led to war and were behind wars. But I could see that now my likes or dislikes, beliefs or disbeliefs meant absolutely nothing in the external, political order. I was just an individual, and the individual had ceased to count. I meant nothing, in this world, except that I would probably soon become a number on the list of those to be drafted. I would get a piece of metal with my number on it, to hang around my neck, so as to help out the circulation of red-tape that would necessarily follow the disposal of my remains, and that would be the last eddy of mental activity that would close over my lost identity. 

The whole business was so completely unthinkable that my mind, like almost all the other minds that were in the same situation, simply stopped trying to cope with it, and refixed its focus on the ordinary routine of life. 

Merton hated war his whole life.  At the end of his life, he vocally criticized nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War.   As I've said in previous posts, these views got him in a lot of hot water with his superiors.  In fact, these views may have cost him his life, if you subscribe to certain conspiracy theories.

Sometimes, you simply have to stand up for something you believe in, regardless of the consequences.  It takes courage and strength to do this.  Abraham Lincoln did it.  Gandhi, too.  And Martin Luther King, Jr.  Jesus Christ.  They all held highly unpopular beliefs, and they were executed for those beliefs.

Here are some beliefs the I hold very strongly, regardless of others' opinions about them:

1. I believe in God.  The universe is too complex--too interconnected--for everything in it to be the result of random coincidences of chemistry or biology or cosmology.  
2. I believe in science.  Science is a way to try to understand and appreciate the mind of God.
3. I believe that, in the end, love always wins.  The world can be a pretty cruel place, filled with war and plague and violence and divorce and addiction.  Yet, love is the antidote to all that.  It will overcome any obstacle.
4. I believe in the healing power of poetry.  The right words, said in the right order, can be the exact medicine to heal any wound.
5. I believe in friendship.  I have the best friends in the world, and they have saved my life on many occasions.
6. I believe in family.  Family grounds me.  Keeps me connected.  Reminds me on a daily basis what is important.
7. I believe in vaccines.
8. I believe that It's a Wonderful Life is the best Christmas movie ever made.
9. I believe that Die Hard is NOT a Christmas movie.
10. I believe COVID is real.
11. I believe that Donald Trump is the worst President my country has had or will ever have.
12. I believe my puppy is the cutest puppy ever.

You may want to argue with me about any or all of these beliefs.  Feel free to do so.  It won't change my mind in the least bit.

I only have one pandemic snapshot I want to focus on today:

• I hosted a Zoom poetry reading for the library this evening.  Ten nominees for Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  All the poetry was amazing.  At one point, there were 78 people in attendance.  And I learned this about myself:  I really like hosting events like this.  I believe I may be good at it.

I will never face execution for any of the beliefs I've expressed in this post, but they sort of define who I am right now.  Talk to me in a week, and I may have changed my mind on a few of these items.

For tonight, however, Saint Marty gives thanks for the miracle of his convictions.