Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

It still seems strange that Thomas Merton, a devout Catholic author and Trappist Monk, could have so strongly influenced my life. On the surface, we had nothing in common. It felt like Merton was giving me a language for my life, as if we were restless brothers.

When Henri Nouwen writes about the false life, he describes it as being “clothed” in the bandages of the false self, like the Invisible Man being wrapped, mummy-like, in long, winding strips of clothes.” That’s what it felt like.

This idea struck the most profound chord in me, as I felt I was suffocating inside of those coffins of lies. I wanted to discover my true self; I never wanted to be someone else.

I took all his books, retreated to a cabin on a mountaintop, and wrote about him. My year on the mountain made me think in solitude and silence about who I am.

The book I wrote about that year was called Running To The Mountain, and the stars were Thomas Merton and two Yellow Labs, Julius and Stanley. The book was not a best seller, and my publisher didn’t like it very much and didn’t support it.

The three of us were alone for half a year; it was almost a monastic life, and no better guide exists than Merton. I read his books and journals every day.

After the year of isolation,  I sold the cabin and bought a farm. My life changed, piece by piece, until I had left the familiar behind. I am beginning to recognize myself.

Merton’s book “No Man Is An Island” also made a deep impression on me, along with his other writing, and I still think of this passage, the one that changed my life the most:

“Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something we would never want to be if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things opposite of what we were made for if we only stop to think about them?”

I had no answers, just questions. I knew I was leading a false life and needed to find the real one, for better or worse. That process is still underway and will almost certainly last for the rest of my life.

In his book “New Seeds Of Contemplation,” Merton wrote:

“Thus, I use my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, power, honor, knowledge, and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real. And I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory, like bandages, to make myself perceptible to myself and the world as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.”

Like Merton, I feel that I was clothed in the false. I was a best-selling author with a dying heart.

I needed to discover who I was and become my true self, not the false one I was paid handsomely to be.

The life I had been living was not the one I ever imagined, sought, or examined. That person was nothing more than a mask that I wore. My curse was that I was so good at it.

And I saw that and knew it right away. Since then, for almost 20 years, I have been working to be the person I am, not the person I had somehow allowed myself to be. It is hard, fruitful, and exhilarating work. It is the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.

I’m not quite there yet and may never fully arrive at that truth. But I’m getting closer and getting better. My spiritual work has helped me see and face the reality.

When I consider myself now, I feel different. I think I am gradually moving towards becoming my authentic true self and away from the false one. I feel lighter, stronger, happier, and much more honest.

Before becoming my true self, I had to confront the false one that many of us spend a lifetime constructing, nourishing, and hiding from.

Merton got me started. Maria helped me along. So did my farm and the animals in my life. But only one can cast aside a false self and live in pride with the real one.