A Montana nun named Sister Lucy sent me a book by the Reverend James Martin, a Jesuit priest, a few weeks ago, just before Thanksgiving. The book was called Becoming Who You Are, and Martin focused on two brilliant priests whose writing made them famous worldwide, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen.
Both men were flawed.
I’ve never met or spoken with Sister Lucy and am not likely to ever meet her face to face.
But she has been reading my blog closely and following my steady and sometimes wobbly search for a spiritual life. I tend to connect with spiritual people because I believe they can often cut through the chaff and see the true me.
Sister Lucy did something difficult for most people to do: she sent me a book I wanted to read. She seems to know where I am going. Martin wanted to understand what made these two men so successful and valuable.
I have read most, if not all, of the books these two men write, and I would credit them for the success of my blog and the troubles I had in figuring out what it should be and what I should be.
And most of all, it made me a better man.
I learned a lot from Nouwen, especially from Merton, a prolific author and a Trappist Monk with a hermitage and foul temper. His writings were like a long-awaited magnet; I was just drawn to his thoughts and writing.
To my surprise, Merton and I had much in common, religion aside. We were both angry and challenging, restless and uncertain in our faith and spirituality. We both fought with everyone around us.
We both had (have) a genius for making people uncomfortable.
Neither of us could get along with our superiors or anybody who told us what to do.
Merton warred with his abbot for decades and antagonized him whenever he could. Merton and Nouwen had huge egos and a strain of intolerance and judgment. Both had a lot of anger, often spilling out in their religious lives. He taught his novitiates to curse at the Abbott in Latin without knowing it.
I learned much from them about writing, seeking a spiritual life, and being a good human with a meaningful life. I learned it was okay to be an outsider in the world as long as I didn’t lie about it.
In his book, Martin talks about why Merton became popular and, in many cases, beloved.
“First,” he wrote, “the two are nearly always honest about their daily lives. The most compelling passages in their writings come when they are candid about both the joys and struggles of their daily lives.”
Merton was almost schizophrenic about his monastic life. He loved to write about the beautiful trees in the hermitage that he bludgeoned his abbot into building for him. But nothing the abbot did for him was ever enough.
He wrote about how angry he was at the abbot, brother Trappists, or the Abbott again; he had to bear the brunt of Merton’s frequent bursts of anger and disappointment.
I’m struck when I read about Merton and how he is often described in the same language I am sometimes described – temperamental, intolerant, thin-skinned, and nasty. The accusations have often been correct.
But I learned so much on that mountain. Merton taught me that I didn’t have to be a saint to be spiritual or to do good. That was a big lesson, even as I have worked hard to shed the anger and judgment I often reveal.
Merton (and Nouwen) both did something most men wouldn’t ever do and which I never did: admit my flaws and try to overcome an overweening pride, sensitivity, and defensiveness.
Merton was well known in his monastery for getting angry and sullen when he wanted something and it didn’t work out. I doubt most of the saints would survive the scrutiny of our modern media.
I took these lessons to my blog; both men inspired it: tell the truth, stand your ground.
I wanted my blog to be honest, not just self-congratulatory and self-serving. I wanted to admit to the extreme vulnerability I sometimes feel, which causes me to be too sensitive and defensive. As we are learning that fear and trauma are vulnerability’s first cousins.
And I wanted to share the beauty of my love, my life, our animals, our farm.
I wanted the blog to be a living virtual memoir, like Merton’s journals, a journal of life, not just a vehicle for selling things or getting people to buy them. I wanted the writing to be me, not the writing a marketing department wanted me to be.
I left behind a trail of alienated and uncomfortable people.
I refused and still refuse to force people to pay for my work. I finally accepted the idea that they would support me if they liked my work and found it valuable, and no other way. That is turning out to be the truth.
Sister Lucy seemed to get me, and I know that isn’t easy.
“Blessings on your self-discovery,” she wrote. “I Used this book on my Hermitage retreat in Kansas – I thought you might enjoy it. Thank you for all the good you and Maria do. God bless, Sister Lucy.”
How curious that a nun in Montana would understand me better than my family.
God bless you, too, Sister Lucy. I am enjoying the book very much, and thanks again for thinking of me.
Like Merton, I often write about the painful disappointments, conflicts, and battles of my life – and all of our lives – and accept that my shortcomings are heartfelt and genuine.
I learned that to be a real man, I had to be authentic and write authentically.
My critics rarely say anything I haven’t said about myself. Merton was no hypocrite. That is liberating. His humility was genuine, not false. His ego was enormous. So was his self-doubt. He was obsessed with writing letters and books, something Trappists are not supposed to do.
Merton taught me that honesty has a price – it draws resentment, criticism, ridicule, and even hatred. Men and women both find it threatening and often assume it’s false. It also draws love, empathy, and understanding.
We are never alone in this world; we are all part of a community.
We are all different.
Merton could be large, and he could be small, and I learned from him that almost everything is good if it is honest and leads to good and important work, to a vocation rather than a job.
The very first thing I wrote on my new blog was that I would be honest, and my readers would get to know the good me and the bad one. I promised that they would always find the real one. I believe I’ve kept that promise.
Some people ran from that, others ran to it.
I will never be perfect, and have no illusions about that. But being honest and showing vulnerability is one of the marks of a good man, a fundamental lesson. Merton and Nouwen did a lot of good. Notwithstanding my flaws, I hope to do the same.
I’ve often read Merton’s passage in his journal in October of 1960. He was about to move into his much beloved Hermitage but could not really manage to be accepting or happy about it. It reminds me of the good flawed people can do.
“It is exceptionally frustrating to have such a beautiful place as this one is getting to be – tucked away among the pines – and to have to stay away from it. Along with this, the conviction that the abbot has no interest in how I might feel about this is sure that my desires are absurd, and I even fear them. But in that case, why would he do something that would manifestly encourage them? I did not really ask for this; rather, I showed great hesitation and gave him five or six chances to reverse his decision and call the whole thing off. By now, he will have completely forgotten this. Meanwhile, I am having a hard time appearing cheerful and sociable. I can’t say I’ve tried too hard, either. Complete disgust with the stupid mentality we cultivate in our monasteries.”
Reading this, I winced at the intolerant and ungrateful response I often had to people who cared for me and valued me. I drove them all away, just as Merton called his abbot stupid. I could picture myself doing just that, and at several points in my life, I did do just that. At times, I thought Merton was an alien; at other times, a spiritual brother.
Merton got what he wanted but burned his bridge at every chance. I learned how to do that.
I took a lot from his writings. I understood that I didn’t need to be a great or perfect man; I just needed to be a calmer and more temperamental me, warts and all. I needed to listen. I needed to file down my anger and push away my fear. I needed to see my weaknesses and be open about them.
In Merton, I had to perfect a role model, a short-fused and intolerant author and spiritualist who could never stop writing. He wrote a score of books and journals and thousands of letters.
I didn’t wish to be him; I wished to be me. I never wanted to be someone else, just a better me.
I learned a lot from Merton about the importance of being who you are, standing up for it, and never being ashamed to be honest or grow up and change.
I believe I learned to be a better man without becoming someone else. That’s what becoming what I am is all about.
