A Year With Thomas Merton - April 22

My Old Freedom in the Silence of "What Is"

Once again the old freedom, the peace of being without care, of not being at odds with the real sense of my own existence and with God's grace to me. Far better and deeper than any consolation of eros. A sense of stability and substantiality--of not being deceived. Though I know there was much good in our love--M.'s and mine--I also see clearly how deceptive it was and how it made me continually lie to myself. How we both loved each other and lied to each other at the same time. How difficult it must be to keep going in truth in a marriage. Heroic! For me the other truth is better: the truth of simply getting along with eros and resting in the silence of "what is." The deep inner sustaining power of silence. When I taste this again, so surely, after so long, I know what it means to repent of my infidelity an foolishness; yet at the same time I do not try to build up again anything that was properly torn down. It was good that (we) went through the storm: it was the only way to learn a truth that was otherwise inaccessible.

All the old desires, the deep ones, the ones that are truly mine, come back now. Desire of silence, peace, depth, light. I see I have been foolish to let myself be so influenced by the current trends, though they perhaps have their point. On the other hand, I know where my roots really are--in the mystical tradition, not in the active and anxious secular city business. Not that I don't have an obligation to society. This evening on the porch I sang the Alleluias and the Introit of tomorrow's Mass.

April 10 and 15, 1967, VI.217-18

A Year With Thomas Merton - September 22

Karl Barth's Dream

Karl Barth had a dream about Mozart. (Mozart a Catholic and Barth is piqued by the fact that Mozart did not like Protestantism, for he said it was "all in the head" and that they didn't know the meaning of Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi.) Well, Barth dreamt he had to "examine" Mozart in Dogma. He wanted to make it as favorable as possible, and in his questions he alluded pointedly to Mozart's "Masses." But Mozart did not answer a word.

I am tempted to write Barth a letter about his moving dream, which of course concerns his own salvation.

He says that for years he has played Mozart every morning before going to work on dogma himself. (Just think! Dogma is his daily work!!)

The Mozart in himself is perhaps in some way the better, hidden, sophianic fact that grasps the "center" of cosmic music and is saved by love (yes, Eros!). The other, the theologian, is seemingly more occupied with love, but it is a stern, actually more cerebral, agape ... a love that is not in us, only in God.

I remember my own dream about "Protestants." (They are perhaps my aggressive side.)

Barth seeks perhaps to be saved by the Mozart in him.

September 22, 1960, IV.49-50