May 27: Deep and Disturbing, Truth, "Denial"

Merton's comfort is disturbed . . . 

Above all, it must be remembered that the world was at war, and even now, at the cottage, we sat around the fireplace at night and talked about the Selective Service Law that would soon be passed in Washington, wondering how’ it would be, and what we should do about it. 

For Lax and Gibney this law involved a complicated problem of conscience. They were even asking themselves whether the war was licit at all: and if so, whether they could be justified in entering it as combatants. For my own part, no problems even arose, since I would be in a monastery, and the question would be settled automatically.... 

I think it is very evident that such a vocation demanded more of a trial. God was not going to let me walk out of the miseries of the world into a refuge of my own choosing. He had another way prepared for me. He had several questions He wanted to ask me about this vocation of mine: questions which I would not be able to answer. 

Then, when I failed to answer them, He would give me the answers, and I would find the problem solved. 

It was a strange thing: I did not take it as a warning: but one night I was reading the ninth chapter of the Book of Job, and was amazed and stunned by a series of lines which I could not forget: 

And Job answered and said: “Indeed I know that it is so, and that man cannot be justified compared with God. If He will contend with him, he cannot answer Him, one for a thousand.... He is wise in heart and mighty in strength: who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?... Who shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. Who commandeth the sun and it riseth not: and shutteth up the stars as it were under a seal.”

It was a cool summer evening. I was sitting in the driveway outside the wide-open garage which had become a general dormitory, since we now had no car to put there. Rice and Lax and Seymour and I had all brought our beds out there to sleep in the air. With the book in my lap I looked down at the lights of the cars crawling up the road from the valley. I looked at the dark outline of the wooded hills and at the stars that were coming out in the eastern sky. 

The words of the vulgate text rang and echoed in my heart: “Qui facit Arcturum ct Oriona...” “Who maketh Arcturus and Orion and Hyades and the inner parts of the south....” 

There was something deep and disturbing in the lines. I thought they only moved me as poetry: and yet I also felt, obscurely enough, that there was something personal about them. God often talks to us directly in Scripture. That is, He plants the words full of actual graces as we read them and sudden undiscovered meanings are sown in our hearts, if we attend to them, reading with minds that are at prayer.

Merton is learning that God doesn't like self-confident, self-satisfied people.  Merton's friends are struggling with the coming war and whether or not they can morally serve as soldiers.  Whether they can kill people for a just cause and still call themselves Christians.  Merton has already checked out of this debate.  He's going to be in a monastery, safely tucked away from such difficult decisions.  God isn't going to let Merton off the hook that easily.  As the passage from Job says, "If He will contend with him, he cannot answer Him."

To put that a little more bluntly:  If God thinks you're full of shit, you're full of shit.

You can't really argue with the universe.  You can deny climate change all you want, but the arctic is melting.  You can try to hide from war, but war will find you.  You can say that there's no such thing as institutional racism in the United States, but "patriots" stormed the U. S. Capitol Building on January 6, waving Confederate flags.  Those are truths.  You can't get around them.  

I think everyone engages in acts of self-deception all the time.  It's how you get through the day.  Sometimes those lies are small:  I don't drink too much coffee in the morning.  Sometimes those lies are big:  my significant other still loves me, even if she breaks my heart on a daily basis.  Mistruths allow you to get out of bed, go to work, interact with coworkers.  The alternative is to pull the covers over your head and sleep away the rest of your life.  I have done both of these things.  

Eventually, though, truth catches up with you.  God calls you on your bullshit.  Then you have to face the facts, one way or another.  It depends on how long you contend with God.  If you keep denying climate change, eventually most of Greenland disappears.  If you allow your significant other to keep breaking your heart, eventually your heart breaks permanently, and you will never trust another person ever.

I am a high-functioning self-liar.  Been doing it for quite a while.  In fact, I've been doing it for so long that I'm not quite sure what the truth actually is.  I'm not going to get into details here, but I do know that, as Fox Mulder says, "The truth is out there."  Some days, it feels like I'm on the coast of Greenland, and the water is up to my eyeballs.  Other days, I can actually fool myself into believing that hearts were meant to be broken.  (Isn't that what almost every country song ever written is about?)

While I'm being purposefully vague here, my message is fairly direct:  you just can't hide from the truth.  And the truth is a lot more healing than the alternative.  There's a reason why Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" in the Book of John.  Because, you can only be fully alive in truth.  And truth will lead you to your Higher Power, whatever name you use--God, Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, the universe, Creator, Bob, Carol, Ted, or Alice.

So, that is my truth for this evening.  Tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I will lie to get myself out of bed.  And to get myself to go to work.  And to do my work.  And to . . . Well, you get the idea.  Because this is a lesson I have to teach myself over and over and over.  Because some truths are just too painful to accept all at once.  Small doses are better.

As Mark Twain once said, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

Saint Marty has traveled up and down that river.  He knows every bend and current.  

Denial

by:  Martin Achatz

I still own a condo there, return
From time-to-time when life gets rough.
It’s a beautiful place where the sky
Stays pink from dawn to dusk, egrets
Basking on the riverbanks, their feathers
Aglow, the temperature, perfect: 74.2° Fahrenheit.
Always. There blows a gentle breeze
Off the water, and a smell of marsh
Hangs in the air, not too strong.
Last night, with weather reports
Of an April blizzard, eight to ten inches,
I took a trip to the Nile, left
Behind everything but a toothbrush,
Clean underwear, a tube of sunscreen.
I wandered the streets of Cairo, bought
Kabobs of lamb and pineapple, ate
Them on the balcony of my place,
Watched the sunset over the river,
So orange it made the water
Sizzle, jump with color, light.
I saw people I know on the street
Below. Maija, my friend whose son
Is alcoholic, bipolar, jogged by,
Her body toned, thin, the way
She’s always wanted it to be.
My office mate, Bonnie, waded
In the river shallows, no children,
No students, just the mud in her toes,
Bach in her ears. So many people
Taking a break in this exotic, pink
Place from all the rocks in shoes,
Hangnails on thumbs, hungry babies,
Mortgages, unemployment, oil spills.
Just a balcony. 74.2°. Lamb kabobs.
Classical music. Egrets, not regrets.
And 4,135 miles of water, Lake Victoria
To the Mediterranean Sea.