Jul 14 2008
Monday Morning with Merton: Coming Home
Excerpt from The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott [pg. 337]:
“A little more than a year later, on December 26, 1960, through a series of circumstances he could not have foreseen, Thomas Merton had his high place at Gethsemani and his hermitage:
Lit candles in the dusk. Haec regina mea in saeculum saeculi [This queen of mine to the end of the ages] – the sense of a journey ended, of wandering at an end. The first time in my life I ever really felt that I had come home and that my roaming and looking were ended.
A burst of sun through the window. Wind in the pines. Fire in the grate. Silence over the whole valley.
He was less than a mile from the monastery, still within the sound of its bells, writing by candlelight and the last sunlight of the short winter’s day in a small building constructed of cement blocks set on the crest of a low knob called Mount Olivet, a view of the valley in front, woods and a spinney at the back.
When he wrote to Catherine de Hueck Doherty, he called it his dacha.” [a Russian country cottage]
Thomas Merton’s Hermitage
With thanks to YouTube Channel: Gethsemani3
God bless you
I am saving viewing the video for after little S is gone away for another little while. As we say, one lives better with Mondays, now.
Carol, I’m in accord with everything – wishing to go to the Abbey, loving Beth’s “louie louie”, and oh yes, Our Lady of Gethsemani…
Of course, the hermitage as it appears in this video is not what it was in the early days for Merton; he had to get water from the Abbey because the stream was contaminated, there was no indoor bathroom, he wasn’t allowed to spend the night there in the first few years so there was no bed, etc. He loved it because it was “poor”.
I see I’ve got some catching up to do, Gabrielle.
Great to have you back, Ann; hope you had a good vacation!
One thing I noticed is that women can really be nosey…that lady who was looking under Merton’s sheets seemed just so impertinent!
I didn’t watch the whole film (trust me, it’s a selfish fault–I like to keep mysteries of love to my own linear understanding) so I didn’t see everyone checking out everything, but got a kick out of the monk who sat at Merton’s table (desk?) who looked up (gazed outside?) and just got lost in thought for a while. Then he noticed the camera on him and smiled, but really did not want to break with that reverie of his –and went right back to it!
Have any of the rest of us pictured/designed our own prayer hut in our minds? Maybe it’s because I have so little privacy these past 9000 years, and because this world is noisier every minute — without earplugs and rubber walls, there is no way to maintain one’s peace of mind/heart when in an old New England place that swells and shrinks with every bout of weather, doors are violently ripped open and/or slammed shut repeatedly –all of which rattles windows on two floors (not to even mention that every bottle and jar must be violently crashed into the recycling bin unto near-breakage–oh, surely it’s all a great hobby for some with less sensitive ears, which each day and sometimes each hour is quickly enough able to make me want to scream with the greatest frustration…and whenever there’s a lack of that, there are boisterous 20-somethings dashing/crashing about and/or trucks going by with their metal trailers hitting the bump on the little bridge, scaring me with a sudden explosion–wah, wah, wah, hey –it’s Monday, I’ve GOTTA whine!) — but it’s fun to at least mentally build one’s hut-with-God, tho’ few understand such a thing.
Oh, Carol, can I ever relate! The throwing of the breakables into the recycle bin, the bus route right outside our house that even feels like it is shaking the foundation, the lawnmowers, the constant ringing of the telephone because of telemarketers, the news that has to be on loud enough so Mrs. Smith sixteen houses down can be sure to hear it…and not just at home, but coming home from work, sometimes I think I’m going to die with the noise of the cars and buses, the cell phone screamers, etc. I’m writing this comment the same day as I’ve just been adding some comments to the post from Oriah Mountain Dreamer about embracing the “now”. This is part of my problem; how can anyone like us embrace this kind of “now”? How to do it? I just don’t know. My dream hermitage? A little bed, a little bathroom, a small table, a chair, a bookshelf with my “necessary” books, a rosary, a Crucifix, some source of music, and possibly a wee chocolate bar now and then.
How dramatic, eh? Makes it hard to believe that I am actually easily pleased.. but for sure, there is often no way to gather with a quiet God in the midst of where we’re planted. It’s no wonder to me that we don’t live in the moment, but look toward a quiet spot/time, and hope we’ll get there without breaking.
Your dream hermitage sounds like mine.
Pia, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Absorb, absorb, absorb. (That means you have to cover for the three of us). Please.
Pia! You have a contemplakita? DANG, girl, I am livin’ on the wrong continent!! (What beautiful imagery… and I’m really glad your habitat is so incredibly conducive to peace and prayer and all.)
Carol, yes, a contemplakita! ROFL!! In case you didn’t know it, Akita Inus are Japanese and are very keen to meditation! He even crosses his front legs!
*sigh..
Ah, the beach. Enjoy, enjoy!