Provocative series of events/happenings occurring having my mind going 90 to 0. Listening to Paul Horn “Inside“ to slow me down. Death of Will Campbell, Feastday of John XXIII, and International Thomas Merton Society Meeting next week such a powerful confluence of men who shaped my life and continue to shape my life. They certainly are not the only folks to have shaped me but they played a very large role. In many ways very different men, a Baptist preacher who often said: “he was the last Baptist left” and “we are all Bastards but God loves us anyway.” A man of the Institutional Church/Roman Catholic Church who when elected bishop of Rome at 77 set in motion a rethinking of what the Institutional Church was to be not just for his Roman Catholic Church but left no institutional Church untouched. A man who entered the monastery so Thomas Merton could die and in the end a monk, Father Louis, who was and is known around the world and next week the 13th International TM Society meeting will take place. I first read “Seven Story Mountain” in 1959 at the ripe age of 11 years old right after John XXIII was elected Bishop of Rome. The Sisters at St Joseph Hospital insisted I read it. I cannot tell you what I got out of it other than “hero worship.” I had already come to the conclusion that I had a religious vocation and now I was sure it was a monastic vocation. By 1963 I was at St Meinrad, a Benedictine Monastery, planning to be at the Monastery of Gethsemani by 1966 studying under Thomas Merton. However in the meantime John XXIII had called for Vatican II. When I went to Saint Meinrad it was as traditional a Benedictine Monastery as one can get and I thrived and loved every aspect of it. In 1964 St Meinrad was designated as liturgical renewal center (or some such term/title). We were doing English liturgy way before everyone else was. We had switched from the “Liber Usualis” to some Luthern Hymnal. I remember the 1st song we learned was “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” (still to this day it is my favorite english language Eucharistic Hymn). What I remember the most of how we were being instructed was that we were not throwing out Tradition but bring the Tradition alive into our time. Whatever we brought in new had to be consistent with the old. That we could not break the connection. I heard many long drawn out arguments over things. I remember reading that Merton said English for English sake will not do; that he would rather stay with the Latin. I did not stay at St Meinrad. Why I left St Meinrad nearly 50 years ago would be hard to say but this is what I wrote in my journal: “I do not think I can kept the Vow of Chastity”, but what does a 17 year old know about the ability to keep a vow of chastity. I never once doubted I had a monastic vocation just could not figure out how it was going to work. I remember reading during this period John XXIII”s “Journal of a Soul” and he said he had been chaste all his life. I did not know how to do that. When I returned back to Memphis I was adrift. Going to Church was just the most painful thing I could do so I stopped. And I would spend time at Overton Park praying, reading, and journaling while my family thought I was at Church. It was literally the 1st time since I was 7 years old I had not gone to Eucharist everyday. But Merton was there through it all. I never stopped reading him, the Daily Office was there and I continued to pray it. And apophatic meditation was there and I was faithful to it. But it was painful. At the end of my freshman year of college I reapplied to go back to seminary this time under the Discalced Carmelites in Dallas. The morning my father was to take me to the train station to go to Dallas, Texas I told him I could not go; a vow of chastity was not in me. Pappa was supportive through it all, God Bless Him. He knew more than the rest of my family what I was going through. In December of 1968 Merton died and I was devastated the anchor was gone. Though I never personally met him part of me died with him and still to this day I cannot think of his death without crying. John XXIII was gone, Merton was gone and I was trying to make sense of it and of my life, and my vocation. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker was there, Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Madonna House were there. They gave some idea about how to do monastic vocation outside the walls. But it was all very unclear. In the midst of all this Bridget with her gifts comes into my life. My wife the anthropologist gives me the Anabaptist (the Mennonites, the Amish, the Hutterites, the Dunkers) now if that is not monastic outside the walls nothing is. And in dances Preacher Will “the last Baptist” and I read “Brother to A Dragonfly.” Probably in all honesty I cried my way through that book instead of reading through it. Here is another one living a monastic life outside the walls. So the last 2 days I have lived chapters 38, 39, 40 of Job. I lived in the WHIRLWIND and I close now with Job 40:4-5 “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:33:01 +0000
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