< BACK TO MERTON MAIN PAGE
< BACK TO MYSTICAL LIFE ARTICLE
< BACK TO COMMUNITY LIFE ARTICLE

January 1, 1999 –at Gethsemani
An odd place. A quiet place. I'm not sure that I wouldn't go nuts here too. Strange business this pulling apart. There is alot of freedom, but also sort of a not knowing what to do. I'll just do what I'll do I suppose – walk around, pray, chant (if I can ever figure out what Psalm we're on).

I guess I'd like to talk to someone, but I'll probably never ask for that – "send me a monk to talk to!" – yeah, right.

Well, I surely can't depend on this place to give me what I need – as if it held God in some way that I my own self did not at all times and in every "place." It's not about places. We've go to get beyond that – beyond where we are looking at places (like the Temple with the Ark) to be where we find God.

What can be legitimate about it, though? The fact that we, as men, have senses and memories and that we are not just "pure spirit." Because of this I suppose we need to see things (speaking of the spiritual life), hear things, smell and feel things which aid us in our prayer and in our walk with God. That's true I guess, but is it altogether legitimate? Are we not called beyond that – not beyond being human, but beyond a merely physical and fleshly existence – one which depends on outward things more than inward – depends on these "things" to even stimulate the inward. Even if it is not so, even if that is not the case, because we are actually inwardly moved and stimulated before we outwardly do anything or seek anything to stimulate us – EVEN IF it isn't so anyway, though we might believe it to be, it still matters that we believe it to be when it is not. It matters what we believe!

And if we believe something screwy, something screwy is the result. The tree that grows is the result of the seed that is planted.

Blah, blah – OK. It must not only be true in reality, in eternity, but we must also know that it is true here in time so that the truth of eternal reality will be properly manifested and will have its effect as it was intended. We must know the truth as it really is in order for truth to "work" as it is intended to "work." Not that God is sitting "up there" saying "Boy, you'd better get to know my truth right or I'll bust your head!" Not that! But that we need to know the house we're in in order to live well in it.

We must know who we are in order to be who we are. God's not whippin' me because I don't know everything yet or because I'm not properly living it all out yet. What He's doing is lovingly, because His desire is only for my good, showing me – leading me into all truth. His Holy Spirit teaches me gently because He knows that I cannot enjoy fully or be fully what I was created to be – to enjoy unless the mind that I was born with is brought into union with the spirit that I was re-born with.

January 2, 1999 –9:37am
I am here in this place surrounded by ghosts of Merton. It is probably because of this that I am here if you get down to it.

I don't like spiders and I just saw an ugly black one on this desk in the library. It went under and is sitting there hanging on the side. I guess I'm fine as long as I doesn't come any nearer.

Well, I haven't spoken to anyone since the brother gave me my room key when I got here. This is very weird to me. This habit of silence is not my habit. I think its good for me to wear it ever so often though. It's good for me. It's good to get recollected ever so often – to get sort of straightened out. Ironically, though, I believe that if I stayed here, or in a place like this, for too long I would end up more crooked than when I arrived.

I miss my family – my wife and my children. I really do. Last night I was in bed thinking about them, praying for them. I know Liz thinks that I am in some kind of "luxury" up here, and probably that I am not thinking of them at all. That is not the case. I do this because I need to do it. It's good, but its never as good as my romantic vision of it tells me it will be. That's another example of God not allowing me to become too enamoured of some thing or some place so that I come to depend on "that" rather than on Him.

God Alone.

I got that spider off the desk. Now, I don't have to keep thinking about it and checking to see if its still over there.

I've been reading more of St. Bernard on loving God. It's neet that I've found the same material that Merton was teaching on in my new tapes. Good stuff. When I'm reading some of it, it seems like kind of baby stuff – then it grows up in front of me and becomes something that I have scarcely heard. I want those truths to be deep in me so that – well, first so that they will be a part of me, and then, so that I can be an instrument of making them (Him) a part of others.

January 2, 1999 –8:31pm
I'm in bed now. My retreat is nearly over. Tomorrow I have decided I will leave after the mass at 10:30 – that means around 12:00 I guess. I haven't been to a mass in a long time so this will be interesting. I have no delusions, especially after this weekend here, that I will go back into the Catholic Church. What I mean by "especially after this weekend..." is that what I have seen here does not give me – and this sounds terrible to say – much hope that, at it's core, Catholicism is any different than what I've always known it to be – like a piece of stale bread or a musty old book. The bread was good but it's just been sitting out too long. The basic content of the book is good but the pages fall apart whenever you turn them and it's hard to read past the stench. Now, all that sounds pretty bad, and I don't mean it to really. I'm just giving my gut observation, my sense. It's the form, I suppose, that is just too old – stinks of the old law – done over and over and over just to do it because that's what you're supposed to do. God NEVER intended that! NEVER!! It's unfortunate that many feel they must hold on so tightly to this stuff. Too bad.

Well, I want to get off that. It has been a good time. Nothing spectacular. There doesn't have to be really. Good time to read, reflect, meditate on the Word.

The big word – LOVE. That's what I've been hearing. Love, love, love. That's what it's all about. First in one place and then in another I am hearing it, and getting it. I've heard Merton, read St. Bernard, Augustine, Fr. Matthew, God's own word-Ephesians. Saturate me with it Lord.

I will live and NOT die!!!

God is my God. I am His Son. I am in Jesus and in Him is no sickness or disease and I am eternally healed as I am eternally forgiven! Amen! That is so.