The Community is My Mother

Today is Thanksgiving Day, and Merton's reflection is full of gratitude for his relationship to Mary, the Mother of God, for her nurture of Merton's solitude and prayerful life.  He claims that he will stop asking questions and relinquish his life to her care.  But, I think the point of having to continuously "keep finding it out over and over again," is the central tenet of a life of faith.  Every day confronts us with a new day, a new opportunity to surrender to mystery, to paradox, to doubt, to faith, like waves piling up on a beach, an endless cycle of movement, natural and full of grace in themselves.  The action of the Existence of the world on our consciousness forms and shapes us.  The waves can be furious or gentle, and either action takes away or leaves treasures on the shore of our lives.
Today the action seems gentle, and I am content to stroll along my beach and observe the smallest shell or the sunset on a wet patch of sand.  Attention, that is the thing today.
In the orphanage in Westpollard, the Little Sisters of Charity provided for me, and now I work for the Dominican Congregation of Sisters.  My true mothers have always been holy women.

God in Search of Humanity

"The realm of the event is the realm of the person."  Merton reflects on the notion of time espoused by Abraham Heschel's book titled the same as this entry.  My mind is drifting today, so I can't help but think of event horizons where the horizon is the domain or limit where light cannot escape the black hole's gravitational field.  I don't think that Merton or Heschel has this sort of physics in mind. 
I suspect the best earth bound analogy for me is my experience in the Libyan Sahara where I worked from 1978-1980.  One day, I was sitting with Muhammed, the buggy driver, a Libyan who had the more prestigious job of driving one of the big vehicles called the cable buggy-a large truck with rods that were welded onto rails around the deep bed where the geophone cables were wound in loops and hung on the outside of the truck to be distributed to the laborers who walked alongside the truck as the new arrays were laid out in advance of the recording truck that I worked in.  Muhammed was a short man, medium build, and his face was proportionate to any race in the Mediterranean.  We sat together taking an afternoon break together sitting on a peak of a small sand dune looking off into the distance.  Muhammed held out his arm pointing into the distance.  "Shufti,"  he said.  Look, and he pointed towards the horizon.  I saw nothing except more and more sand as far as I could see.  Nothing, I told him, I see nothing.  He got a little excited, "Shufti,  Sabha, aywa?"  Look, Sabha, yes?  I didn't understand what he was telling me.  Then he pointed at his eyes, and he squinted and pointed again at the edge of the horizon.  I tried to squint, and suddenly I saw a number of structures far off in the distance close to the horizon.  They were oil wells, I realized.  I pointed at the structures that I saw, but he practically shouted at me as he pushed my arm slightly westward and said again, "Sabha, Sabha."  Then I saw it.  Like goose bumps on skin, composed of shadows rather than light, a small collection of buildings pebbled up against the horizon.  The difference against the surrounding background of the desert made it seem more the matter of a mirage than real sight, but I exclaimed, "Sabha!"  Muhammed clapped me on the back and pointed at my eyes, and then pointed in a circle all around us and said, "Look and live." 
When I got back to camp that night, I found out that Sabha was the closest town to our campsite, about 50 kilometers away.  Through some trick of the light, we were able to see the outline of the town on the horizon, but Muhammed's  lesson for me was that one had to learn how to see in the desert in order to survive. 
I never did get any better at locating the work sites, the laborers always pointed out the path, saying "Maashi gadaam, maashi gadaam" after they began looking around nervously at me and the direction I was driving.  But I did learn to respect the desert, how easy it was to become completely lost.
It takes great effort to truly see what is right in front of us.  I have never been able to look at a horizon without remembering my lesson, but I've realized that everyday requires the same effort or my vision becomes habituated to a kind of blindness and the world is hidden from me all over again.

The Key to Peace

    "Only here do I feel fully human.  And only what is authentically human is fit to be offered to God."  Back in 1989, I was separated from my first wife, and I was seeing a therapist.  She asked me where I felt most comfortable.  I didn't quite understand what she was getting at.  I told her that I was most comfortable on my couch, at the end where I liked to curl up to read.  She asked me if there was any other place where I felt most like myself.  Then, I began to get what she was after.  With little hesitation, I told her that whenever I stepped onto a college campus, I felt at home, as if the tensions of the world ceased to exist for me, and I felt more comfortable and at ease than in any other place. 
    I have lost a little of that feeling this semester, that feeling of sanctuary, of belonging and peace.  I have carried some of my losses, my grief and my sadness with me into the university and I find myself scrambling to relieve the stress of the business of life, the appointments, the general sense of being chased from one thing to another. 
    Today  I sat in on the inaugural meeting of the Mission Integration Council, an advisory body that has been formed by our President from a group of faculty, staff, board members, and students.  There are about twenty or so of us.  We were asked to reflect on our first impressions on accepting the invitation to join the council, perhaps as our President stated to reflect on our hopes.  I was most keenly aware that my acceptance signified my continued willingness to be open to change, however that process might occur.  Since 1989, I have been on this path, this road in which I have  been open to the movement of my heart's interests, to follow those interests to their ends, and to hope and trust that the actions I take to honor those interests will reflect the will of God in my life.  If I have a hope, perhaps that is the best way to describe my faith, it is to be true to myself, and that will have to be sufficient, it is all that I have to offer to God.
   Maybe I should also try walking around barefooted.

Feast of Joy and Anguish

Merton reflects on the feast of the founding of the Gethsemane Chapel, and wonders "What in the world am I doing here?"   He then describes "any vocation is a mystery, and juggling with words does not make it any clearer."  Juggling is an interesting choice to describe the discursive practice that Merton uses in his writing.  I think it would be hard to describe juggling as anything but a kind of play, except perhaps for the professional juggler.
Teaching English and writing is a kind of juggler's practice...drawing attention to the different kind of objects that can be juggled.  Here's a poetically shaped pin, here's one that very dramatic, and then here's a straightforward prose object.  Start with a simple set, a subject and a verb, see if you can get the hang of it!
While I was rehearsing with one of the young women who volunteered to do a staged reading of David Mamet's first act of Oleanna last week, the insurance agent for the house in Toledo called.  It was an instance of life reflecting art.  In the play, the professor, John, is constantly being interrupted by calls from his wife or lawyer during a real estate transaction he is trying to accomplish in the middle of an interview with a student who is failing his course.  On Friday afternoon, we finally did the reading on the back stage in the Fine Arts Quad, and my confederate in the audience called my phone on cue throughout the reading.  That one piece of staged theatrics blurred the boundary between the real and the imaginary for the students who didn't realize that the phone call was coming from one of their classmates.  I think that some of the students were caught up in the drama, probably due to that one device.  They often think that they're too cool to be caught juggling.

A Decisive Clarity

Merton's entry from 1961 confirms his stance against nuclear arms.  His voice is so clear and resolute, as if he is convinced that he can do something about the situation.  As I have noted before in this log, I am impressed by the sincerity and willingness of some people to dedicate their lives to helping others.  Although my own teaching profession is also considered a kind of calling or vocation, I struggle to believe that my own work makes a difference in my student's lives.  I often feel that my voice and ideas are a kind of discordant, antiquated noise that is barely discernible within the tumultuous symphony of materialist culture.  I wonder what lasting effect my work will have in my student's lives.  I have no issue, like nuclear armaments, or capitalism, or social justice that motivates so many of my colleagues and friends and heroes enjoy.  Instead, I draw my small satisfactions in silent perspectives, in words; phrases as delicate as the beauty of a young woman's face, or ephemeral as the glistening dew on a palm leaf.

Working for Peace

In 1961, Merton prays for the courage, patience and wisdom to speak and work for peace.  He complains that Americans are so afraid and worried about Communism, but they do not want to disarm.  I am often discouraged by the fact that Americans still are afraid of Communism, socialism, whatever the "ism" of the moment is; the loudest voices cry for more guns, more weapons, more power, then when their power is complete there will be peace.  But isn't history the record of such peoples, such governments, such policies, the record of failure, of war and strife?  I am afraid that we will never change, that the only power that will change history will be catastrophe, manmade or natural. 
I am always impressed by those civic minded people who are willing to protest in public, to join political movements, who continue to hope in the face of the disadvantage of history and the nature of mankind-a beautifully, tragic nature-equal parts of angel and demon.  The debate is going on today over the health care bill.  The Democrats are hoping to gain enough votes to pass a bill that can be given to the Senate.  But, the Democrats are divided into multiple groups, some want to object to provisions in a health care package that would provide assistance to medical procedures including abortions.  Others won't agree to a bill that doesn't acknowledge the current legality of abortion.  So these individual causes as worthy as they may be in a individual situation are enough to derail the whole proposition that Americans are deserving of healthcare.  Each side seems willing to abandon the millions and millions of people to whom abortion is not the issue, but treatment for diabetes or migraines or any of hundreds of different diseases and illnesses.  Forgotten are the faces of the millions of American children who receive no dental care or checkups because their parents cannot afford healthcare of any kind.  The problem that I have with such prinicpled stands is that they are like the American Bishops who sided with President Bush during the first and second elections because he was against abortion.  Their support and the Catholics over whom they had sway helped to push the election into the hands of Bush and the conservatives, and today we have wars, deaths of soldiers and countless foreign nationals, an economy that is unbalanced on the side of the military industrial complex; and we still have legalized abortion!  I believe that the Bishops erred in the practice of their faith.  They did not practice generosity, instead they sought and were corrupted by power.  Perhaps one day, I will join a movement, but until then I will practice generosity, kindness, patience and love with the people I meet everyday, and I trust that the peace that I have already found in living this way will be the world for me.

Afraid of Mystery

Yesterday was a long day.  I arrived home after eight o'clock exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Katherine held me in her arms as I unwound and began to rest and recuperate.  We love each other.  We are bound together in terms of love, that we don't even understand.  We attempt to build a security of our own devices that is so fragile, weak, and vulnerable to the world's calamities.  Yet, we don't see that as a surrender to our own insecurities and dependencies, instead we see it as a strength, prudence, and realism.  Because we are afraid of mystery, Merton suggests that we rest our understanding on those things which are of our own making rather than confront the mystery of God's love.  Still, as many of Merton's entries make clear, this mystery is partly revealed to us in the smallest signs, the speckled yellow of a birds colors, the flash of their wings in sunlight, the intricate detail of the veins of a leaf.  Like the solitary monks of medieval days, St. Columcille comes to mind, perched on some rocky ledge above a thunderous grey surf and sky entertained by some wild visitor, nature provided a voice for the love of God in their lonely vigil.  Isn't all of our life a fragile perch on the ledge of Time?  In Katherine's blue eyes I find myself understood only by love.