March 6: Pedestrian and Practical, Chaos and Chance, Judy the Star

 Merton reflects on the struggle of meditation and prayer . . .

Now every day began with Mass and Communion, either at Our Lady of Guadalupe or St. Francis of Assisi Church. 

After that I went back to Perry Street, and got to work rewriting the novel which had been handed back to me politely by one of those tall, thin, anxious young men with horn-rimmed glasses who are to be found in the offices of publishers. (He had asked me if I was trying to write in some new experimental style, and then ducked behind his desk as if I might pull a knife on him for his impertinence.) 

About twelve I would go out to get a sandwich at some drug-store, and read in the paper about the Russians and the Finns or about the French sitting in the Maginot Line, and sending out a party of six men somewhere in Loraine to fire three rifle shots at an imaginary German. 

In the afternoon I usually had to go to Columbia and sit in a room and hear some lecture on English Literature, after which I went to the library and read St. Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics which I had reserved for me on my desk in the graduate reading-room. This was a matter of great consternation to some Sisters of St. Joseph who occupied nearby desks and who, after a while, became timidly friendly when they learned that I was going to become a Franciscan in the summer. 

At about three in the afternoon I was in the habit of going to Corpus Christi, or to Our Lady of Lourdes which was even closer, and doing the Stations of the Cross. This meditative and easy prayer provided me with another way, more valuable than I realized, of entering into participation in the merits of Christ’s Passion, and of renewing within me the life that had been set alight by that morning’s Communion. 

In those days it took a little effort to walk to a church and go around the fourteen stations saving vocal prayers, for I was still not used to praying. Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same with all my devotions. They did not come easily or spontaneously, and they very seldom brought with them any strong sensible satisfaction. Nevertheless the work of performing them ended in a profound and fortifying peace: a peace that was scarcely perceptible, but which deepened and which, as my passions subsided, became more and more real, more and more sure, and finally stayed with me permanently. 

It was also at this time that I first attempted any kind of mental prayer. I had bought a copy of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius many months before, and it had remained idle on the shelf—except that when I came back from Olean and took over the apartment from Seymour’s wife, to whom I had sub-let it, I found a couple of little pencil marks in the margin opposite passages that might be interpreted as sinister and Jesuitical. One of them was about death, and the other had something to do with pulling all the blinds down when you wanted to meditate. 

For my own part I had long been a little scared of the Spiritual Exercises, having somewhere acquired a false impression that if you did not look out they would plunge you head first into mysticism before you were aware of it. How could I be sure that I would not fly up into the air as soon as I applied my mind to the first meditation? I have since found out that there is very little danger of my ever flying around the premises at mental prayer. The Spiritual Exercises are very pedestrian and practical—their chief purpose being to enable all the busy Jesuits to get their minds off their work and back to God with a minimum of wasted time. 

I wish I had been able to go through the Exercises under the roof of some Jesuit house, directed by one of their priests. However, I went about it under my own direction, studying the rules of procedure that were given in the book, and following them in so far as I managed to grasp what they were all about. I never even breathed a word about what I was doing to any priest. 

As far as I remember I devoted a whole month to the Exercises, taking one hour each day. I took a quiet hour, in the afternoon, in my room on Perry Street: and since I now lived in the back of the house, there were no street noises to worry me. It was really quite silent. With the windows closed, since it was winter, I could not even hear any of the neighborhood’s five thousand radios. 

The book said the room should be darkened, and I pulled down the blinds so that there was just enough light left for me to see the pages, and to look at the Crucifix on the wall over my bed. And the book also invited me to consider what kind of a position I should take for my meditation. It left me plenty of freedom of choice, so long as I remained more or less the way I was, once I had settled down, and did not go promenading around the room scratching my head and talking to myself. 

So I thought and prayed awhile over this momentous problem, and finally decided to make my meditations sitting cross-legged on the floor. I think the Jesuits would have had a nasty shock if they had walked in and seen me doing their Spiritual Exercises sitting there like Mahatma Gandhi. But it worked very well. Most of the time I kept my eyes on the Crucifix or on the floor, when I did not have to look at the book. 

Here's the thing--prayers get answered, whether you're sitting cross-legged on the floor with your eyes closed, driving into a pink Lake Superior sunrise, or eating a bag of microwave popcorn at eleven o'clock at night after a long day of toil.  Open your mouth and give words to your heart, and those words will rise into the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere.  Prayers are subject to a different kind of gravity, pulled toward the eardrum of the universe.

Merton is simply too worried about details--space and position, method and light.  He doesn't understand that the only thing that matters, in the end, is surrender.  Giving yourself over to God's will.  Trusting that the universe isn't all chaos and chance.  There is order and design in all things.  Scientists have laws of motion, thermodynamics, energy, chemistry, evolution.  They rely on these concepts for their understanding of how things work.  Christians have the Bible--Old Testament, New Testament.  Jewish people have the Torah.  Muslims have the Koran.  We trust in these lessons and rules and narratives.  They give meaning and import to our lives.  And comfort.

 I found out this evening that a young someone I love lost that sense of meaning.  Gave into feelings of shame and despair.  Forgot that the universe's capacity for love and forgiveness is infinite, filled with multitudes of stars and planets and nebulae.  Let's name that young person "Judy."  Judy, in that black hole moment, almost did something--something irrevocable.  Then got scared, changed her mind.  

Tonight, I'm lifting Judy up to the light of the universe.  Giving thanks that she's still here.  With us.  That God reached down and filled her with fear.  That the object that was set into motion in Judy's spirit spun off in a different and opposite direction.  Judy is still here, on this mess of a world in which we all live.  

And I am here to tell Judy that she is loved, by her parents and family and friends.  That the universe is a brighter place because she is in it.  It needs the elements of her.  Solar systems collapse when stars die, and the star of her is brighter than Sirius, despite all of the garbage that swirls in its orbit.  

Tonight, Saint Marty is wishing on a star, hoping on a star, giving thanks for a star.

March 5: I Was Happy, Smell of Bacon, Worry

 Merton doesn't realize that he's really happy . . . 

I was still without any formal spiritual direction, but I went frequently to confession, especially at St. Francis’ Church, where the Friars were more inclined to give me advice than secular priests had been. And it was in one of the confessionals at St. Francis’ that a good priest one day told me, very insistently: 

“Go to Communion every day, every day.” 

By that time, I had already become a daily communicant, but his words comforted and strengthened me, and his emphasis made me glad. And indeed I had reason to be, for it was those daily Communions that were transforming my life almost visibly, from day to day. 

I did not realize any of this on those beautiful mornings: I scarcely was aware that I was so happy. It took someone else to draw my attention to it. 

I was coming down Seventh Avenue one morning. It must have been in December or January. I had just come from the little church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and from Communion, and was going to get some breakfast at a lunch wagon near Loew’s Sheridan Theater. I don’t know what I was thinking of, but as I walked along I nearly bumped into Mark who was on his way to the subway, going to Columbia for his morning classes. 

“Where are you going?” he said. The question surprised me, as there did not seem to be any reason to ask where I was going, and all I could answer was: “To breakfast.” 

Later on, Mark referred again to the meeting and said: 

“What made you look so happy, on the street, there?” 

So that was what had impressed him, and that was why he had asked me where I was going. It was not where I was going that made me happy, but where I was coming from. Yet, as I say, this surprised me too, because I had not really paid any attention to the fact that I was happy—which indeed I was. 

Can I tell you that happiness is snow that comes in the middle of the night, coating everything, the way medicine paints a sore throat into numbness?  You wake up in the morning, and the world, once ugly with mud or dead leaves or bare black branches, is Ansel Adams stunning.  You wander through your backyard, not even recognizing it as your backyard.  It has become the most beautiful place you have ever been.

Happiness always arrives in that surprising way, like a cousin that travels all night and appears at your door at 7 a.m., asking for coffee and a bed.  You don't even realize you've missed the cousin until his face is staring at you across the kitchen table.  And then you find yourself smiling, laughing even, when you haven't smiled or laughed in a very long time.

That's what Merton experiences here--the kind of happiness that sneaks in the back door and is making you breakfast when you didn't even realize you were hungry.  And, for the rest of the day, you walk around with the smell of bacon sitting in your nose, feeling full, satisfied.  You don't even realize how happy you are, because you are simply too busy being happy.

I think most people walk around focusing on what's wrong in their lives.  I know I do.  For me, today was all about a person who's been making choices that are painful to witness and be a part of.  These thoughts have consumed me for a good portion of my waking hours, like a wine hangover.  No matter what remedy I've tried, I couldn't shake the lingering headache of the situation.

Here's the other truth I know:  most of us worry about things we have absolutely no control over.  Worry about unemployment or illness or weather or your sister's Alzheimer's or Donald Trump's bad hair.  I have zero control over any of these things.  No matter what I say or do, the person I spoke about in the above paragraph will continue to make bad choices.  Until she decides not to.  It has absolutely nothing to do with me.  Yet, I allow those bad decisions to control my happiness.  

Jeanne Calment, purportedly the oldest living person in modern times (she died at age 123), had something to say about worry.  Calment lived from 1875 to 1997 in Arles, France, and allegedly met Vincent van Gogh.  She said about the famous painter, "I met him at the end of his life . . . At the very end.  He was ugly.  He was blighted by alcohol."  Calment became known for her blunt talk and wisdom.  She outlived every person in her immediate family.  At the end of her life, she had become an international celebrity.  Here is what Calment said about worry:

"If you can't do anything about it, don't worry about it."

This philosophy seemed to have served Calment well.  She smoked from the time she was 21 until age 117, when she quit because she could no longer see well enough to light her cigarette.  She ate a pound of chocolate a week.  Hers was not a life of denial and frugality.  More like excess and indulgence.  Worry was not a factor.  She experienced great loss--her daughter died of pleurisy at the age of 36, her grandson was killed in a car accident.  Yet, she remained indefatigably happy, right up to her dying day.

I think we can all pick a card from Calment's deck.  Worry over things you can't change is pointless and harmful.  Tonight, I can say that it is also exhausting.  So, tomorrow, I choose to be happy, regardless of what happens during the day.  Because life is short.  Even if I live to be 123, I've already spent a good portion of my days chasing after a version of happiness that just might be impossible.

So, happiness tomorrow.  And chocolate.

Saint Marty can get behind those two miracles. 

March 3: Softened and Humanized, Obsession, Pass the Salt

 Merton gets serious about being a priest . . . sort of . . . 

The Franciscan monastery on 31st Street, New York is a grey unprepossessing place, crowded in among big buildings, and inhabited by very busy priests. Not the least busy of them in those days was Father Edmund, Dan Walsh’s friend: and yet he was not too busy to talk to me practically any time I came around to see him. He was a big amiable man full of Franciscan cheerfulness, kind, disciplined by hard work yet not hardened by it, for his priesthood, which kept him close to Christ and to souls more than softened and humanized him. 

From the first moment I met him, I knew I had a good friend in Father Edmund. He questioned me about my vocation, asking me how long it was since my Baptism, and what it was that attracted me to the Franciscans, and what I was doing at Columbia, and when I had talked to him for a while, he began to encourage me in the idea of becoming a Friar. 

“I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t eventually make application to enter the novitiate next August,” he said. 

Next August! That was a long way off Now that my mind was made up, I was impatient to get started. However, I had not expected to be admitted immediately by any Order. But I asked him: 

“Father, isn’t there some chance of my entering sooner?” 

“We admit all our novices together, in a group,” he said. “They start out at Paterson, in August, then they go on together all the way through until ordination. It’s the only way we can handle them. If you entered at any other time, you would miss out all along the line. Have you had much philosophy?” 

I told him of Dan Walsh’s courses, and he thought for a moment. 

“Perhaps there might be a chance of starting you out in the novitiate in February,” he said, but he did not seem to be very hopeful. No doubt what he was thinking of was that I might skip a half-year of philosophy and so catch up with the others at the house of studies up-state, where they would be sent after the year’s noviceship. 

“Are you living with your parents?” he asked me. 

I told him they had long been dead, and that none of my family was left, except an uncle and a brother. 

“Is your brother a Catholic too.” 

“No, Father.” 

“Where is he? What does he do?” 

“He goes to Cornell. He is supposed to get out of there next June.” 

“Well,” said Father Edmund, “what about yourself? Have you got enough to live on? You aren’t starving or anything, are you?” 

“Oh, no, Father, I can get along. I’ve got a chance of a job teaching English in Extension at Columbia this year, and besides that they gave me a grant-in-aid to pay for my courses for the doctorate.” 

“You take that job,” said the Friar; “that will do you a lot of good. And get busy on that doctorate, too. Do all the work you can, and study a little philosophy. Study won’t hurt you at all. After all, you know, if you come into the Order you’ll probably end up teaching at St. Bona’s or Siena. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

“Oh, sure,” I said, and that was the truth. 

I walked down the steps of the monastery into the noisy street, with my heart full of happiness and peace. 

What a transformation this made in my life! Now, at last, God had become the center of my existence. And it had taken no less than this decision to make Him so. Apparently, in my case, it had to be that way. 

I understand Merton's obsession here.  Yes, I used the word "obsession" instead of "calling."  Because I don't think that he has quite gotten to the place where he's willing to simply surrender to God's will in his life.  If he was at that point, he wouldn't have pushed Father Edmund about entering the Franciscan Order on some kind of advanced placement plan.  He would have just said, "August?  Okay."  Merton still wants to be in charge here.  His mind is set on becoming a priest.  Right now.

I totally get this kind of obsession.  It happens to me when I write poems or read books.  I don't want anything to get in the way.  Last night, I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. revising the poem I posted on my blog.  This morning, I started revising it some more.  Off and on, all day long, that poem has been with me.  I think I'm on about my 25th or 26th iteration of the ending lines.  Since 6 a.m.  Sometimes, I changed one word.  Moved a line up or down.  Eliminated an image.  Put an image back in.  Sent it to friends for their advice.  Got their advice and did another revision.  Now, I think that it is done.

Maybe.

And I'm fairly exhausted.  That's what obsession does to you.  It sort of sets you on fire, and you blaze brightly for a while.  Two hours.  Two days.  Two months.  Two years.  Whatever.  After that, the fire settles down to ash or ember, and it becomes work to keep it stoked and burning.  Then, you have a choice:  find a new obsession or put in the effort to keep your old one going.

Of course, this rule applies to almost anything.  A job.  Writing a book.  Parenting.  Owning a car.  A friendship.  A marriage.  There's always the initial excitement of the first date.  First draft.  Wedding night.  First eight hour shift.  First road trip.  First time holding your newborn child.  Firsts are easy and exciting.

After first, however, comes second.  Then third.  Fourth,  Fifth.  Eventually, new becomes old.  Worn.  Comfortable.  You stop trying so hard.  Take things for granted.  That is the mistake most people make.  For a first birthday, you throw a big party.  Invite relatives and friends.  Hang streamers and balloons.  Video the child smashing birthday cake with fists.  It's a big deal.  Eventually, though, the birthday parties become less and less elaborate.  Until, one year, it becomes a text message sent in the morning because everyone is so busy with their lives:  "Happy birthday, sweetheart!  Hope it's great!"

In a marriage, when one spouse simply stops trying, the relationship is doomed.  It becomes a mechanical series of days, with "I love you" said like "pass the salt."  It's the easy thing to do.  Because, as with anything that lasts for a long time, maintaining love is hard work.  That's why affairs happen.  A match that's just been struck burns bright and hot and fast.  It's beautiful and fleeting.

I am tired of working on the poem that I wrote yesterday.  After thirty or so drafts, it has become a stone worn smooth.  Maybe it's still beautiful, but I just can't tell anymore.  So I toss it into the lake, where it will tumble and shine in the waves.  Become wonderful again.  Hopefully.

Here's my advice to everyone reading this post tonight:  say "I love you" and mean it.  Every day.  Take your dog for a walk, every day, and let her be a puppy again.  Write a letter or note or e-mail or text to a friend, and in that message, tell that person why they are important to you.  Do this every day.  Eat Fruit Loops like you've never tasted them before.  Reread The Catcher in the Rye, and remember when it was the most important book in your life.

If you do the hard work of making everything new, every day, you will be that match burning bright and hot.  The word "boring" will never enter your vocabulary.  Sure, your heart may get broken.  Many times.  Every day.  But a broken heart means that you have loved.  Do love.  Deeply.  

And new poems will pour out of you.  

Tonight, Saint Marty gives thanks for the hard work of love.

March 2: You Know Yourself So Well, Flaming Swords, "Koi"

 Merton says he could never be a Trappist monk . . . 

Dan said: “Do you think you would like that kind of a life?” 

“Oh, no,” I said, “not a chance! That’s not for me! I’d never be able to stand it. It would kill me in a week. Besides, I have to have meat. I can’t get along without meat, I need it for my health.” 

“Well,” said Dan, “it’s a good thing you know yourself so well.” 

For a moment it occurred to me that he was being ironical, but there was not a shadow of irony in his voice, and there never was. He was far too good and too kind and too simple for irony. He thought I knew what I was talking about, and took my word for it. 

And so the conclusion of that evening was that I decided to go and see the Franciscans, and after all, we both agreed that they seemed to be the best for me. 

So he gave me a note to his friend Father Edmund, at the monastery of St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street.

Merton is absolutely certain he knows what is best for himself.  He could never be a Trappist, because their way of life would kill him.  Simplicity.  Prayer.  Solitude.  Not for him.  Vegetarian diet.  Nope, he needs meat.  Every day.

This passage is Merton at his most human--wanting to be in charge of his own destiny.  Of course, none of us can really claim that privilege.  Six years ago, I was working full-time in the business office of an outpatient surgical center while contingent teaching at the local university.  Three years later, I was still working at the surgical center while contingent teaching, but I was also the Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  Another two years--I was working for a cardiology practice, contingent teaching, and serving my second term as Poet Laureate.  Today?  I am the coordinator of adult programming for the largest library in the Upper Peninsula, still a contingent professor at the university, and am no longer Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  

During that span of time, my older brother died of complications from a stroke.  My sister died of lymphoma of the brain.  And my dad died of natural causes at the age of 90.  Some people in my life have had on-again, off-again, on-again struggles with addiction and mental illness.  Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.  And a global pandemic pretty much shut down the world.

Six years ago, I wouldn't have predicted any of that.  I was contentedly doing my thing--teaching and working and writing.  I thought I knew who I was and understood my place in the universe.  And that place didn't entail me deciding which facemask matched my outfit every morning.  Or a failed reality TV star inciting the overthrow of the government of the United States.

Yet, God had different plans for me.  Just like she had different plans for Merton.  My life zigged when I thought it was going to zag.  Here I sit in my living room this evening, after hosting a virtual astronomy event for the library, thinking about how I got where I am right now.  And thinking about all the people who have supported and helped me along the way.

You see, I believe that people enter your life for a reason.  Because I'm a Christian, I think God puts them there.  For Merton, God sent Dan into his life to steer him toward a contemplative religious existence.  Me?  Well, it takes a whole village to keep me functioning.  

But even now, I still like to think that I'm pretty independent.  That I call the shots.  I think everybody labors under that particular fallacy.  Because, otherwise, it means you have to surrender control to the universe or God or Buddha or Muhammed or Yahweh or Jesus.  Take your pick, depending on your particular belief system.  And that's pretty scary.  Like riding blindfolded in a car on the Autobahn.  A white knuckle experience.

Unless you have faith and trust.  Then, you can just take a nap and, when you wake up, you'll have safely arrived at your destination.  Some days, I nap.  Other days, I white knuckle it.  Reading the Old Testament, I get the impression that visitations from angels were as common as colds.  Faith was easy.  Even Job, scabby and poor and childless and bereft, held onto his faith.  Because angels walked the blighted earth bestowing blessings on those who believed.

The Book of Daniel in the Bible describes an angel like this:  "I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude."  

These days, angels take on a different form.  In my life, they are friends who send me text messages every day:  "How are you doing?"  Who drop off notes containing Bigfoot stickers on my front porch:  "Thank you for being you."  Who do Zoom calls with me where we drink wine and scribble poems:  "Write about an animal that fills you with wonder, like Elizabeth Bishop with that fish."

It's easy to have faith when you have messengers like these in your life.  More Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life than six-winged seraphim with flaming swords.  At the end of Frank Capra's film, George Bailey receives these heavenly words from his angelic visitor:  "Remember no man is a failure who has friends."

Tonight, Saint Marty gives thanks for all the angels in his life.

Koi

for A. C.

by:  Martin Achatz

They blossom in ripples, Monet
creatures, fuzzy at the edges, suffused
with a kind of radioactive light.
The old Japanese man created
this pond, perhaps from some haiku
by Basho.  Here, in the lake. Fish float.
God's eyelashes flash. Perhaps
from some recollection of Kyoto
where his father suckled the umbra
of his grandmother's young breasts.
Or perhaps he just woke up
one morning, aching
for something beautiful, went
to work. Van Gogh in an Arles

field.  Michelangelo on a slab
of David marble. Him hauling 

a copper bucket of kumquat 

fish that chased, orbited

the starry water, the way my pen 

pursues this poem's end

like Halley's Comet

toward the gravity

of its last breath.