Merton worries about names . . .
The general impression I got was that all the unpleasantness and hardship was crowded into the year of the canonical novitiate, and that after that things opened out and became easy and pleasant as they were now: and certainly these clerics as I saw them were leading a life that could not by any stretch of the imagination be called hard. Here they were living at this college, among these beautiful green hills, surrounded by woods and fields, in a corner of America where the summer is never hot, and which they would leave long before the cold weather came. They had whole mornings and afternoons to read or study, and there were hours in which they could play baseball or tennis or go for walks in the woods, or even go in to town, walking two by two, solemnly in black suits and Roman collars.
They told me elaborate stories of the ways there were of getting around even the easy regulations that prohibited too much familiarity with seculars, and of course the good Catholic families in the town were falling over themselves in their anxiety to invite the young Franciscans to come and sit in their parlors and be made much of, with cookies and soft drinks.
For my part, I was already deciding in my mind that I would make use of all these opportunities to get away and read and pray and do some writing, when I was in my brown robe and wearing those same sandals.
Meanwhile, I got up when the clerics did—I suppose it was not much earlier than six in the morning—and went to Mass with them, and received Communion after them all, and then went to breakfast with the farm hands, where a little nun in a white and blue habit brought us cornflakes and fried eggs: for the cooking was done by some Sisters of one of those innumerable little Franciscan congregations.
After breakfast, I would walk over to the library, breathing the cold morning air as the dew melted on the lawns. Father Irenaeus gave me the key to the philosophy seminar room, and there I could spend the morning all alone reading St. Thomas, at my leisure, with a big, plain wooden crucifix at the end of the room for me to look at when I raised my eyes from the book.
I don’t think I had ever been so happy in my life as I now was in that silent library, turning over the pages of the first part of the Summa Theologica, and here and there making notes on the goodness, the all-presence, the wisdom, the power, the love of God.
In the afternoons, I would walk in the woods, or along the Alleghany River that flowed among the trees, skirting the bottom of the wide pastures.
Turning over the pages of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, I had looked for some name to take in religion—indeed, that was a problem over which I had wasted an undue amount of time. The Province was a big one, and there were so many Friars in it that they had run out of all the names—and you could not take a name that was already taken by someone else. I knew in advance that I could not be a John Baptist or an Augustine or Jerome or Gregory. I would have to find some outlandish name like Paphnutius (which was Father Irenaeus’ suggestion). Finally I came across a Franciscan called Bl.John Spaniard and I thought that would sound fine.
I considered the possibility of myself running around in a brown robe and sandals, and imagined I heard the novice master saying: “Frater John Spaniard, go over there and scrub that floor.” Or else he would put his head out of his room and say to one of the other novices: “Go and get Frater John Spaniard and bring him here,” and then I would come humbly along the corridor in my sandals—or rather our sandals—with my eyes down, with the rapid but decorous gait of a young Friar who knew his business: Frater John Spaniard. It made a pleasant picture.
When I went back to the cottage on the hill, and timidly admitted that I thought I might take the name of Frater John Spaniard, Seymour at least thought it was a good choice. Seymour had a weakness for anything that seemed to have some sort of dash about it, and maybe in the back of his mind he was thinking of Torquemada and the Inquisition, although I don’t think the John Spaniard in question had much to do with that. But I have forgotten where that saint actually did belong in history.
All this fuss about choosing a fancy name may seem like nothing but harmless foolishness, and I suppose that is true. But nevertheless I now realize that it was a sign of a profound and radical defect in the vocation which so filled my heart and occupied my imagination in those summer days of 1940.
The portrait of the religious life that Merton paints here is almost of a country club with sandals, robes, and Roman collars. Or a monastic Dead Poets Society. Certainly, his vision is not based in any kind of reality. He is worried more about accoutrements and less about sacrifice. In some ways, Merton sort of reminds me of myself when my wife was pregnant with our first child. I dreamed of first pictures and Christmases. Cute outfits and the smell of baby shampoo. Nothing in my fatherly daydreams contained the sleepless nights, colicky screams, or my wife's descent into depression and mania postpartum.
I wish that Merton's visions of religious life were true. If they were, half the world would be monks, the other half cloistered nuns. Who wouldn't want days of cornflakes and fried eggs, some not-so-inconvenient menial labor, and then an afternoon of reading, writing, and contemplation? Followed by a trip into town for some cookies and pop (soda, for all you non-Michiganders.)
The truth of the matter is that reality rarely aligns with fantasy. Take me, for example. Yes, I work for a library now. Yes, I spend my days dreaming up readings and concerts and classes. I've talked with a two-time U. S Poet Laureate. I just booked a National Book Award-nominated writer for an event this fall. I spent part of this afternoon creating a script for a podcast episode that I'll record tomorrow. It sounds like a dream job for an artsy person like myself. And it is.
However, I work hard. Every day. That conversation with the two-time U. S. Poet Laureate was the result of months of negotiation, contracts, chasing down sponsors, promotion. Getting in touch with the National Book Award-nominated writer took me several emails, and I'm still not completely done. I have to negotiate dates and times and an honorarium. And writing the podcast script involved research, revision, and a fair amount of creativity.
Merton falls into the same trap that we all do. To borrow from James Thurber--we are all Walter Mitty. Trapped in day-to-day monotony, we dream ourselves into lives of adventure and recognition. We become saints or celebrated writers or gifted surgeons. Heroes. It's a comforting place to reside, but, eventually, we must all return to our offices. computers, hammers, and cash registers. You can't Mitty yourself permanently out of life. That's not how it works.
So, most days, I take Mitty breaks. Allow myself to go for a walk along Lake Superior. Stare out of my office window. Let my eyes unfocus, and open the gates of fancy and dreams. In those few minutes, I am standing next to the King of Sweden, accepting my Nobel Prize. Reeling in the big fish with Santiago off the coast of Cuba. Painting a mallard with James Audubon.
At the end of those Mitty breaks, I'm ready for the next email or phone call or knock on my office door. Reality. Merton, struggling with his trust in God. Me, contacting another prospective sponsor to beg for money.
Saint Marty gives thanks for the ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of his imagination.
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