In The Press

As I mentioned at the end of my last brief post, I made a pilgrimage that I’ve been pondering for a while. I returned last week and took some time before attempting to set down a few thoughts here.

In recent months I’ve undergone considerable emotional and spiritual stress, some of it from factors beyond my control. The cracks in my foundations have begun to show, and my wife suggested with loving firmness that it was time I made the trip I had been talking about for some time.

Back during my very brief time in a college classroom, I had the good fortune to sit under the teaching of a stellar professor of English. A French lady, she was a former nun, and was the first academic type to ever offer me serious criticism of my writing, as well as equally serious encouragement to make writing a priority in my life. At the end of the semester in which I studied under her, Professor D gave me a book as a parting gift. The book was The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton. I glanced through the book and read the blurbs on the jacket. Though I was grateful for the gift, I had no inclination to spend my then-Protestant energies reading the memoirs of some cowl-wearing Trappist monk. I probably gave the book away; I certainly forgot about it, and my twisting path continued on for some decades.

A little over three years ago, I began a deep interior inventory and began evaluating my life and my faith. During that time, I continued to read incessantly. On one of my expeditions to our little public library, I was prowling in the biography stacks when I saw a somewhat familiar title. There it was — Merton’s book. I checked it out, took it home, and sat up late into the night reading most of it. I finished it two nights later and felt as if someone had doused me in electrified water. Not long after this, I found three of Merton’s books at a used book sale and devoured them as well. Suffice it to say that I have since become quite familiar with the works of the celebrated monastic author.

Gethsemani Abbey, where Merton spent his decades as a monk before his death in 1968, is a little over four hour’s drive from our home. I have read much about the Abbey and have talked with my wife over the years about the possibility of traveling there to explore. With the onset of my recent troubles, my wife raised the idea again and I decided she was right. I wrote to the Abbey and explained my situation in brief. In return, I received a gracious letter from one of the monks who told me that he had forwarded my letter to a Father James, who would be contacting me.

Father James did indeed write me, and invited me to meet with him upon my arrival at Gethsemani Abbey. We coordinated a schedule, my wife reserved lodging in nearby Bardstown, and early last Friday morning, we set off on my pilgrimage.

The heat of the day was remorseless, even to two people who have weathered Texas summers under drought and weeks of +100F temperatures. We arrived at the monastery more than an hour early, and spent time in the excellent book store and watched part of the introductory film in the Visitors Center. With some time yet to kill, we went outside under the huge live oaks and sat in metal chairs in the shade. A steady breeze cooled us while we sat and talked. In time, it was time. Father James had indicated that he would meet us at the Retreat Center.

We left the comfort of the shade and walked the hundred yards to the front of the Abbey and gazed up at it. Photographs reveal that the facade of the monastery has changed considerably since Merton’s arrival in the World War II years. In the blinding sun, we walked through the small cemetery out front and made our way up the impressive steps to the church. We looked around for a bit but couldn’t determine the location of the Retreat Center, so we returned to the book store and asked for help. We returned to the Abbey and found the correct door, which is the door where prospective novices arrive at night and ring the bell for the brother on duty to come and admit them. We entered and were greeted by the first Trappist monk I have ever seen in real life.

He was a tall, lean man with glasses and a warm smile, clad in the white robe and black scapular familiar to me from my research. We explained that I had an appointment with Father James, and the monk nodded and asked, “Does he know what you look like? That is to say, have you been here before?” After I gave my two “no’s,” the monk nodded again and invited us to enjoy the artwork on the wall or to help ourselves to water. He also pointed to a rack of postcards bearing photos of the Abbey and some of the monks, and he told us that the cards are free and that he could mail them for us, postmarked “Gethsemani Abbey.” We looked at the art briefly and then sat down to wait.

We probably weren’t seated more than sixty seconds before I looked up and saw him approaching. I knew even without the monk on duty announcing him that it was Father James.

He moved with slow steps along the corridor towards us, his hands hidden in the folds of his habit. He was a bit shorter than I, with close-cropped hair. I could see sturdy black boots swinging out from the folds of his robe, and over his shoulder I could see a large crucifix through the open door of the chapel behind him. When he reached us, we stood and I said, “Father James?”

His face split in a shy smile and he nodded and called me by name. I introduced my wife, and then Father James said, “Well, shall we go and talk?” My wife asked if it would be all right if she stayed in the Retreat Center and read while he and I talked. He replied that she could do anything she wanted, and he said, “You’ll be safe here.” Then he led me down the hall from where he had appeared, and we went to a large room, where he closed the door behind us.

During the next hours of conversation, which ranged all over my life and troubles and perplexities, I watched Father James’ face. My life has developed in me very sensitive antennae for certain things, and I detected none of those things in this monk. I even gave him several deliberate openings to see if he would give me a pat answer or provide boilerplate advice or offer a tediously predictable response. He never once took the bait. Every word was measured, quiet, and forceful. At one point, I thought of Christ and His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. After Jesus had spoken to her, she had raced home and exclaimed to the people there, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did!” This is how I felt under the gaze and voice of Father James. He asked me questions about things that startled me; at one point I even found myself wondering if he had spoken to family or friends about me. The power and accuracy of his perception was eerie and unsettling…and comforting.

By the time our conversation was winding down, I knew that I was in the presence of one of the rare people I’ve ever met (my beloved wife is another) who was one hundred percent there with me. He wasn’t formulating his next well-crafted response while I was talking; he was listening with a deep, deep attentiveness. And every time it was his turn to speak, he took his time in considering his words before offering them.

At one point, his voice became cracked and he reached into the folds of his habit and came out with…a Ricola cough drop. He winked at me as he unwrapped it, and for just a second or two, he was about six years old.

After expressing his hope that I might return for a spiritual retreat, his disappointment that we couldn’t meet in person more regularly, and his offer to continue our conversation via email, he peered at me with those soft, canny eyes. He looked down at my hand, which was toying with something in my pocket, and he looked back into my eyes. “Is there something you want to ask me?” he said.

Caught off-guard, I stammered, “I was trying to decide if it would be proper for me to ask you…to ask you to bless my rosary.” Father James smiled and extended a hand as smooth as marble. I placed the rosary in his palm, and he stared down at it for a moment. Then he made the sign of the cross and bowed his head and prayed one of the loveliest prayers of blessing I have ever heard. I say “loveliest” because the prayer was notable for the sense of being spoken directly to God, not for my benefit, not for play-acting, not for appearances. A real prayer, a conversation as serious and normal as any talk between a father and son.

When he had finished blessing my rosary, Father James handed it back to me and I noticed that my hand was shaking when I reached for it. We stood, and he again expressed his desire to correspond with me regularly. And then before we turned to go, he said in that soft voice, “I wonder if I might pray a blessing over you as well?”

He placed his hands on my head and began to pray, another intimate, immediate conversation between him and Him. And while he was praying, I became aware of the warmth of his hands on my head. I could feel the warmth radiating down through my hair, into my scalp, down into my neck. His hands seemed to be melded to me, as if nothing could loosen them, as they had never handled doubt. As his blessing came to an end, I felt his gnarled thumb trace a cross on my forehead, and I wondered how many times that venerable digit had traced crosses on foreheads, on holy objects, on his own forehead, lips, and breast. Then the blessing was ended and he lifted his hands from my head and I stood upright. Father James looked again into the center of me and whispered, “You must…you must live in prayer.” He gestured with a hand to the door, and we went outside to rejoin my waiting wife. Father James smiled and said, “Of course!” when I asked if my wife might take a photo of us.

Because of the hellish heat, we did not spend much more time on the monastery grounds. We did, however, visit the church at the top of the massive steps. We entered through thick wooden doors and I dipped my fingers into the smooth stone font, so like a birdbath, and touched the cool water to my forehead as I crossed myself. We passed through glass doors to sit in the visitors gallery; none except the monks may enter the church proper. We took in the choir stalls, the pipe organ, the light at the tabernacle, far down at the other end. We sat in the chairs, and I took out my rosary, bowed my head, and said a silent decade. And while I prayed and while my wife waited, I felt the deepest silence I have ever known. The church was silent beyond silence, as if airless. I could imagine the beauty of the Gregorian chant those walls had known, and the solemn peace of the Divine Office sang and said on this site around the clock since before the War Between The States. When I finished praying the decade, we stood and left, and on the way out, I touched a finger to the surface of the holy water and placed the drop, clear as a butterfly’s chrysalis, on the crucifix of my rosary.

Outside, we viewed some of the statuary and markers around the church, walked along the stone walls where Merton — who was known as Father Louis — walked and prayed, and then we walked down the stone steps to our car and went to find a restaurant.

I had wanted to return at 6:15 am for Mass, but that night I was completely exhausted, drained to the point of trembling as I lay in bed in our room, so we did not arise in time to attend. We did return to the Abbey and visited the bookstore, where we bought a few treasures. We got in our car, turned the A/C on high, and pointed ourselves towards home, with a brief stop at the Bardstown Farmer’s Market.

And all the way home, we talked about my conversation with Father James Conner, OCSO. The tone of our conversation was one of wonder and relief. The trip home felt completely different from the trip to Gethsemani. Within two days, Father James and I had begun our correspondence.

Tomorrow, I will be at work, at the place where so many of my struggles and challenges and, yes, sufferings have had their origin. I have been deep within myself since returning from Gethsemani Abbey, and so much of that time has been spent meditating upon and exploring the content and meaning of suffering, of life in this age of ugliness and noise and insanity. Tomorrow I will begin to learn whether or not I can carry with me a monastery of my own construction.

~ S.K. Orr