A Year With Thomas Merton - May 2

Being in One Place

A cool and lovely morning, clear sky, ever-changing freshness of woods and valley! One has to be in the same place every day, watch the dawn from the same house, hear the same birds wake each morning to realize how inexhaustibly rich and different is "sameness." This is the blessing of stability, and I think it is not evident until you enjoy it along in a hermitage. The common life distracts you from life in its fullness. but one must be able to share this fullness, and I am not for a complete and absolute solitude without communication (except temporarily).

Yesterday was St. Bede's day (he died on Ascension Day, 735). He is one of the saints I most love, and the simple story of his life and death fill me with love and joy. The afternoon was peaceful and marvelous--a nice walk and meditation at St. Malachy's field, then came back and gave a conference on Philoxenus. The simplicity and innocence of the monks is a real joy, a shining joy, so evident one does not notice it. Yet I must say that concelebration in the morning did nothing to express the reality of love and oneness in Christ that is actually here. The singing was timid and depressing, and I must say that we are not anywhere nearly properly realizing and manifesting what it is all about.

The flycatchers, tamer and tamer, play about on the chairs and baskets on my porch, right in front of this window, and the are enthralling. Wrens come too, less frequently.

May 28 and 30, 1965, V.251-52