After a night on fire watch at the abbey, Thomas Merton wrote this paragraph, among a chapter:
At eight-fifteen I sit in darkness. I sit in human silence. Then I begin to hear the eloquent night, the night of wet tress, with moonlight sliding over the shoulder of the church in a haze of dampness and subsiding heat. The world of this night resounds from heaven to hell with animal eloquence, with the savage innocence of a million unknown creatures. While the earth eases and cools off like a huge wet living thing, the enormous vitality of their music pounds and rings and throbs and echoes until it gets into everything and swamps the whole world in its neutral madness, which never becomes an orgy because all things are innocent, all things are pure. Nor would I have mentioned the possibility of evil except that I remember how the heat and the wild music of living things drive people crazy, when they are not in monasteries, and make them do things that the world has forgotten how to lament.
9 comments:
The power went out a few days ago during a wind storm. It was during the day so we could not hear the sounds of the night, and even if it had been night, it would not have been anything so rich as what Merton describes. But I didn't realize how silent the quiet was until the power came back on and the humming started again. The constant, droning, hum of life as we know it with refrigerators, furnaces, air-conditioners, computers, etc. Even when it's quiet, you can hear it.
I think a night in an abbey would be an enriching experience -- to hear the quiet of nature vs. the quiet of being plugged in.
I've had similar experiences with the quiet due to power failure - or tent camping in the woods. Even in my hearing-challenged world, there is too much humming etc.
Let's go to the abbey together, shall we?
Merton's evocative description of night is wonderful.
Forgetting how to lament--powerful. Thanks for this, Cherie.
I may have to put Merton on my "to-read" list.
merton gives me the shivers, i love him so much.
(which book is this from?)
Elixer - he's definitely a good read!
Angela - this is from An Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals, edited by Hart and Montaldo.
He gives me the shivers, too.
Annie, that last phrase jumped off the page at me, too, the one about forgetting to lament. It sits quietly at the end of the paragraph, and yet, it groans.
I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't experienced this. Nights like that put our world in order, so we can welcome the rebirth that occurs at dawn.
I gotta read me some Merton too. Thanks for the heads up!
Poetically stated, tshs, and I agree whole-heartedly!
Merton is definitely worth a read. I'm not a Catholic, but I am a Christian believer as he was. His works are happily full of wisdom, perspective, insight, honesty, not to mention his way with words which makes my soul just sigh......
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