VISIONS OF GETHSEMANI

When it became apparent on the day after "The Beaches" picture was taken - a Friday - that the car was not going to be available until after the weekend we decided to head south in another rented vehicle to spend the weekend in Memphis, Tennessee before heading to Thomas Merton's monastery in Kentucky on the Monday.

Gethsemani in Ice

Trappist Monastery, Kentucky

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

"Thomas Merton was a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani from 1941-1968. This was the day when I heard that my car was finally ready for collection, and I set off for Toronto that evening in the worst ice-storm in living memory. The evening before, Father Damian (the Guestmaster) had been telling us that we were at Gethsemani not because we chose to be, but because God wanted us there. This is what he called 'special grace.' So, I reasoned, that if I had to go away it was because God didn’t want me there after all; he wanted me on the road instead. This was my extra-special grace. But before I set off I spent a peaceful day in and around the monastery getting to know the macro-photography feature on my camera. The snow and ice made everything even quieter; it was as if time itself has stopped – a moment frozen in eternity. I especially love this picture which seems to capture that moment with the depth of field between the ice-encrusted tree and the entrance to the abbey church."

In his book Contemplative Prayer, Merton writes:

"All prayer, reading, meditation, and all the activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and our situation as willed by Him." (p.68)

Merton's life as a monk was aimed at "purity of heart" - this was what his spiritual path was all about, developing "purity of heart." He defines this as "surrender to God" which he equates with acceptance of the present moment - "ourselves and our situation" - as willed by God.

In The Beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel we read that the pure in heart are blessed for they will see God.

There seems to be a link between acceptance/surrender, purity of heart and true seeing - vision of reality.

In all of this talk about acceptance - even embracing - whatever the circumstances we find ourselves in, looking for the hidden gift within, I am conscious of and uncomfortable with the potential for this to come across as trite - fatalistic and platitudinous. A car stuck on a train is hardly a life crisis; driving through the worse snow & ice storm to hit the mid-west in living memory was a bit more scary (and I had to give myself a good talking-to); but everyday people are confronted by huge challenges of life and death - chronic illness, sudden calamity, injustice, torture, imprisonment, the loss of loved ones, the list is endless. Ultimately we are all faced with our own mortality - as was Neal Cassady by a railroad in Mexico in 1967, Merton in a Bangkok hotel room in 1968, Kerouac while watching the Galloping Gourmet on TV in 1969 - what poetry in our deaths. Actually I suspect they all faced their mortality way before any of their deaths; these were just the times and places of their final showdowns.

And yet... and yet, all of that notwithstanding, there is still huge power in the way we are able to accept what must be accepted - that which cannot be anything other than accepted because it cannot be changed - even though it may threaten to rip our very souls out from our mortal skins; the surrender that brings peace; the purity of heart that enables us to see clearly.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" - a beatitude; a be-attitude - a way of being that has to do with a way of seeing. A long time ago Kerouac made the link between the word "beat," as in the "beat generation," with the word "beatitude" meaning being in a state of "blessedness." And how are we to understand "blessedness"? It suggests to me a state of peace, and an invulnerability against all that would destory us and tear us down, it is the ultimate overcoming. It is the ultimate justice in overturning the fortunes and the values of the world, the ultimate putting right of wrongs, the last shall be first and the first, last. Blessed are the poor in spirit... blessed are those who mourn... blessed are the meek... blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice... blessed are the merciful... blessed are the pure in heart... blessed are the peacemakers... blessed are the persecuted... blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you. Make no mistake.