Merton spends some time with friends . . .
The cottage was crowded, and that meant that there were far more dirty dishes piling up in the kitchen after those perilous meals of fried, suspicious meats. But everybody was busy with something and the woods were quiet and the sun was as bright as ever on the wide, airy landscape of rolling mountains before our faces.
Presently Seymour came from New York, with Helen his wife, and Peggy Wells came to the cottage, and later came Nancy Flagg who went to Smith and for whom Lax had written a poem in the New Yorker. Gibney and Seymour climbed into the tops of thirty-foot trees and built a platform there about ten feet long between the trees, reached by a ladder up the side of one of the trees. It was so high that Lax would not even climb it.
Meanwhile, in the early mornings, outside the room where the girls lived, you would see Peggy Wells sitting and reading one of those fancy editions of the Bible as literature out loud to herself. And when Nancy Flagg was there, she sat in the same sun, and combed her long hair, which was marvelous red-gold and I hope she never cut it short for it gave glory to God. And on those days I think Peggy Wells read the Bible out loud to Nancy Flagg. I don’t know. Later Peggy Wells walked through the woods by herself puzzling over Aristotle’s Categories.
Rice and Knight and Gerdy sat apart, mostly in or around the garage, typing or discussing novels or commercial short stories, and Lax grew his beard, and thought, and sometimes put down on paper thoughts for a story, or talked with Nancy Flagg.
For my own part, I found a good place where I could sit on a rail of the fence along the stony driveway, and look at the far hills, and say the rosary. It was a quiet, sunny place, and the others did not come by that way much, and you could not hear the sounds of the house. This was where I was happiest, in those weeks in June.
Merton is still living the life of a person who sees the future perfectly. He knows where he's headed, and he knows how he's going to get there. The tone he uses in this passage is one of complete satisfaction and clarity. "I am holy and above all this," he seems to be saying. "I don't care about novel writing or girls with marvelous red-gold hair." All he needs is a place apart and a rosary.
I wish I had that kind of vision. It would be comforting to possess the kind of self assurance of being exactly where you are supposed to be, knowing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. I haven't had that experience since middle school. Maybe grade school. When teachers and parents tell you exactly what to do and how to do it.
Adulting is full of choices. Places where, as Robert Frost wrote, two roads diverge in a yellow wood. What branch of that fork do you take? Then, when the road branches again, do you take the path less traveled again, or follow the well-worn trail? And the next branch? And the next? It's a never-ending process. The destination never any closer.
And, really, is life about destinations? Because we're all headed to the same place, eventually. Life is about the road itself--the choices you make along the way--not the place you end up. It's sort of like Christmas. I prefer the build-up to the day. Christmas Eve is better than Christmas Day. Wrapping a gift better than receiving one.
In the passage above, Merton has reached Christmas Day. He's followed the star to the manger, and he's found salvation. That's the source of his peace of mind and heart in this passage. He's been to the manger. Unwrapped his Christmas present.
An unquiet life is a life of constant searching. Never trusting in the universe or a higher power. I'm just as guilty as the next person when it comes to this. Even though I call myself a devout Christian, I live a daily existence of fear. Sitting on my couch every night, I have to force myself not to let my mind fall down the rabbit hole of tomorrows. Human beings are creatures of the present moment. And what I do right now--the path I choose to take--is the only thing within my power.
I can't backtrack to old forks in the road and make different choices. And I can't look into the distance and tell where the bend in the road leads. The past is over. The future will become the present soon enough. It's all about the current intersection. And trust. Frost says at one point in "The Road Not Taken": "And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black."
So, tonight I will publish this post, make my lunch for tomorrow, set out my clothes. When I wake tomorrow, I will pick one of those ways leading on to way. And I will leave the rest up to God or the universe.
Saint Marty just hopes there's an Olive Garden along the way somewhere.
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