So when we entered Cincinnati, in the evening, with the lights coming on
among all the houses and the electric signs shining on the hills, and the
huge freight yards swinging open on either side of the track and the high
buildings in the distance, I felt as if I owned the world. And yet that was not
because of all these things, but because of Gethsemani, where I was going.
It was the fact that I was passing through all this, and did not desire it, and
wanted no part in it, and did not seek to grasp or hold any of it, that I could
exult in it, and it all cried out to me: God! God!
I went to Mass and Communion the next morning in Cincinnati, and then
took the train for Louisville, and waited in Louisville all the rest of the day
because I did not have the sense to take a bus to one of the towns near
Gethsemani and buy a ride from there to the monastery.
It was not until after night fell that there was a train out to Gethsemani,
on the line to Atlanta.
It was a slow train. The coach was dimly lighted, and full of people
whose accents I could hardly understand, and you knew you were in the
South because all the Negroes were huddled in a separate car. The train got
out of the city into country that was abysmally dark, even under the moon.
You wondered if there were any houses out there. Pressing my face to the
window, and shading it with my hands, I saw the outline of a bare, stony
landscape with sparse trees. The little towns we came to looked poor and
forlorn and somewhat fierce in the darkness.
And the train went its slow way through the spring night, branching off at
Bardstown junction. And I knew my station was coming.
I stepped down out of the car into the empty night. The station was dark.
There was a car standing there, but no man in sight. There was a road, and
the shadow of a sort of a factory a little distance away, and a few houses
under some trees. In one of them was a light. The train had hardly stopped
to let me off, and immediately gathered its ponderous momentum once
again and was gone around the bend with the flash of a red tail light,
leaving me in the middle of the silence and solitude of the Kentucky hills.
I put my bag down in the gravel, wondering what to do next. Had they
forgotten to make arrangements for me to get to the monastery? Presently
the door of one of the houses opened, and a man came out, in no hurry.
We got in the car together, and started up the road, and in a minute we
were in the midst of moonlit fields.
“Are the monks in bed?” I asked the driver. It was only a few minutes
past eight.
“Oh, yes, they go to bed at seven o’clock.”
“Is the monastery far?”
“Mile and a half”
I looked at the rolling country, and at the pale ribbon of road in front of
us, stretching out as grey as lead in the light of the moon. Then suddenly I
saw a steeple that shone like silver in the moonlight, growing into sight
from behind a rounded knoll. The tires sang on the empty road, and,
breathless, I looked at the monastery that was revealed before me as we
came over the rise. At the end of an avenue of trees was a big rectangular
block of buildings, all dark, with a church crowned by a tower and a steeple
and a cross: and the steeple was as bright as platinum and the whole place
was as quiet as midnight and lost in the all-absorbing silence and solitude of
the fields. Behind the monastery was a dark curtain of woods, and over to
the west was a wooded valley, and beyond that a rampart of wooded hills, a
barrier and a defense against the world.
And over all the valley smiled the mild, gentle Easter moon, the full
moon in her kindness, loving this silent place.
At the end of the avenue, in the shadows under the trees, I could make
out the lowering arch of the gate, and the words: “Pax Intrantibus.”
Pax Intrantibus--this translates loosely as "Peace to those who enter." In some way, that Latin phrase contains both a wish and a promise. The wish is that whoever is entering through that gate arch will find peace. The promise is that peace is available to anyone who is looking for it. In essence, all the responsibility is laid pretty much at the feet of the peace seeker.
And that's pretty much true for anyone who wants any kind of peace in their lives. It's available, but you have to do the hard work of letting go before peace is possible. Letting go of worries and angers. Of stress and ego. Pretty much, if it causes you to lose sleep, you need to let it go.
That doesn't mean that you should stop paying your bills or taking care of your kids or elderly parents. You can't do that. But you need to transform those worries. Remember the food in your refrigerator. The good, clean water running from the tap. The furnace rumbling in the winter. The day your first held your infant child. All the meals your mother or father made for you. All the late nights your mother or father worked. Then, instead of losing sleep, you'll give thanks for those blessings.
Peace isn't something that descends on you like spring rain. (It happens like that sometimes, but not often.) Usually, peace of mind or heart or spirit is hard won. Lasting peace is a lifelong process, with many deviations and renegotiations and new treaties. And remember, peace comes after war. Battles and casualties and body counts. Peace comes with a price. If you aren't willing to pay that price, you're going to be in the trenches for the rest of your life.
Today, I am willing to pay for peace. Instead of digging in stubbornly and refusing to compromise, I am opening my fists and letting go of things that I've been holding onto tightly. I'm feeling the blood returning to my fingers after this release. I may wake up tomorrow morning with my fists clenched again. That may happen. Then I will have to pry my hands open. Again. And again. And again.
Saint Marty may earn a Nobel Prize for peace instead of literature by the time he's done.
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