I once met a monk

It was in the early 70s that we lived near a monastery which was famous for one of it's monks,Thomas Merton.His writings were published throughout the world and had influenced many believers,including myself.

My husband, small children and I went to this peaceful monastery and walked the hills that surround it.As we approached the monastery church ,we were joined on the shaded path by a tall, smiling monk in denim who had just come in from the fields.Ah, I thought, a spiritual brother of my mentor, Thomas.

We had barely said hello when the monk said,"I don't know what I am doing here".As we walked it became apparent that he had lost his faith.We walked and talked and a connection was made.

He came for Thanksgiving dinner that year and was happy to be having meat for the first time in 20 years.The turkey was bleeding but, in his kindness ,he never batted an eye.In time, we got a letter that he had left his monastery and married.He stopped by our house once, after we had moved to another state, and that visit in the early 80s was the last that we saw of him.

However, we always kept in touch ,by Christmas cards and an occasional letter.He was such a good writer that I loved hearing from him.His Christmas cards were studiously secular and mine were abundantly religious.The first one we got was bordered in black and we received many with cardinals and snowy scenes.We discussed his hero Carl Sagan once in a letter and I said that he suffered from hubris.

I prayed for him over the years and shared my faith and then in recent years the cards stopped.I didn't send any or he didn't and now I am not sure when I last heard from him.Until last Wednesday,when I recognized his writing on an envelope.This is all he wrote on a piece of monastery stationary.It is from "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson and the speaker is God:

"Strange, piteous ,futile thing !
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?..
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me ?"

Indeed!

Dick and Jane and Writing

May is a month loaded with birthdays,graduations and other special days.Off we went this morning to buy cards and gifts.The second stop was that incredible sports store,Dick's, where hubby found a light cotton shirt for his trip out West.One birthday down.

For Mother's Day, I bought myself a yoga strap for stretching so I can put away my green Dior scarf.Perfect.
Then ,the last stop-Barnes and Noble.If they put a bench and a blanket in there ,I would move in.

This gift was for my god-daughter who we just put on a bus to Memphis yesterday,it seems, and who is now graduating next week.She reads constantly and is an English Lit. major so I got her a biography of a famous Georgia author who died too young and owned peacocks.Flannery O'Connor.

Anyway, the cover is gorgeous with a small painting of the famous author and a beautiful painting of peacock feathers.I hope she likes it.

While browsing ,I also found a small Jane Austen journal.I confess that I have never read anything she wrote.Sue me.I have seen some dramatizations of her works on PBS and liked the stories but the quote on the cover of the journal spoke deeply to me.She wrote in "Mansfield Park" ; "We have all a better guide in ourselves,if we would attend to it,than any other person can be." This is it.This is why we write.

In Whose Name?

The other night ,my husband and I watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose".I had seen it before.It is not as frightening as "The Exorcist" but it is not a fun movie to watch.

The priest who performed the exorcism was charged with negligent homicide because the possessed young woman died while in his care.The movie is based on a true story that happened in Germany.Apparently, the girl's grave has become a pilgrimage site visited by the faithful and the curious.

I thought of this today while at Mass.The reading of the Acts of the Apostles for the day was Acts 4:8-12......"In the power of that name this man stands before you(healed.)This Jesus is 'the stone rejected by you, the builders which has become the cornerstone 'There is no other salvation in anyone else,for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are saved."

In the Rite of Exorcism ,the priest prays this: "We drive you from us ;whoever you may be, unclean spirits,all infernal invaders,all wicked legions,assemblies and sects in the name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ."There is much more to the Rite but it is performed, from beginning to end, in the name of Jesus.

We may wish that this was not so.The story of the bloody man on the cross may be a turn-off for us.We may want to find a way to save ourselves but that is not what scripture says.

When the rubber meets the road and the spirit world separation has been breached by evil, where do you turn? By what name can we hope to get help?

Mr.O'Hara and me

I am reading the authorized sequel to "Gone With The Wind," which is called ,"Scarlett." I must say that I find it to be as intiguing as the original.

My family and I first saw the movie at the Hunter Theater in New York and I don' think I have ever gotten over it.I was 17.The scene at the train depot with all the bodies ,spread out as far as the eye could see, was terrible.And then there was Tara. Home.Where Scarlett headed when she,Rhett ,Melanie and her baby escaped Atlanta and the invading Yankees.The horrific fire and explosions.And then home to Tara, the lovely plantation of her family.

The original Tara was in fact the plantation of Margaret Mitchell's great-grandparents, the Fitzgeralds of Clayton County,Georgia.We have lived on the original 3,000 acres for the last 20 years and never knew it.A very informative tour of Stately Oaks, a refurbished Civil War plantation near downtown Jonesboro, led us to this revelation.We live on two acres that borders the Flint River flood plain where Margaret and her brother used to play as children when they went South from Atlanta for the summer.

The original building was taken apart and it sits under blue tarp somewhere in Clayton County, waiting for the money to be donated to bring it back to life.

Of all the towns in this country that we could have moved to when we left New York, we came to Jonesboro.And Tara.

When I wander around our small parcel,the wind whispers through the pines.The white rue anemone and the violet wild geraniums nod under the pink native azaleas that are tall and unnoticed until Spring. It is then that I can hear that old Irishman, Mr.O'Hara.He is telling his beloved daughter, Katie Scarlett ," It's the land,Katie, the land.It's the only thing that lasts or matters.The land." And I feel chills all over, again.

old friends and gaps

Last month, inspired by a story that I wrote of my childhood , I decided to try to locate an old friend .We hadn't seen each other for over 38 years.I found her on "switchboard" in Florida and I sent her a letter.Two days later , my mail box contained an envelope with writing that I would have known anywhere.My dear friend.In bold print she described how she had prayed for help to find me! Wow!
Rosemary and I met when we were ten years old in the old neighborhood on Long Island.It did not go well.We met on the lawn of a neighbor and sized each other up.We were both very atheletic and competitve.Without saying anything about it we vied for athletic excelllence and recognition not to mention boys.We went to the same high school but had different friends.Later, in college ,we became closer and she was an honored part of my wedding.
I have a picture in black and white of us standing in front of the small ,white ,clapboard church in Allaben,N.Y.We had gone to the mountains for a 2 week vacation with my parents.We are eleven years old.She is plump and smiling and I am skinny and grimacing.
This summer, my dear friend and her husband, will visit us again in the Catskill Mountains.We have had two successful meetings since we found each other and we will once again pose for pictures in front of that church as we did 55 years ago.What a blessing.
What is most remarkable to me is the similar gaps in our lives.My only sibling died in December 2008 and my dear friend and her sister are estranged.I realize that if I hadn't followed the urging to write that short story of my childhood,none of this would have happened.I cannot explain what holy writing is but I recognize it when it happens.

Treasures

I recently have come by some small treasures; one is a pen and ink drawing that represents Mundy's Mill, which used to be a working mill here in Clayton County.I bought corn meal there when my children were very small and made muffins.The mill is gone but they saved the wheel and it is on the grounds of Mundy's Mill High School.I found this wonderful drawing at the Goodwill Store near us for five dollars.After some sprucing up ,it hangs by my front door.
The other item was also five dollars .I found it on-line at a shop in Vermont.It is a white tile with a black drawing of my 5th great-grandfather's house in Guilford,Vt.He lived there in 1772 and the house still stands.It is pink now but somehow that is all right.It is a stunning colonial house.He was Gov.Benjamin Carpenter,and a Revolutionary War hero.This summer I intend to visit his grave in Vermont and have a chat and bow to honor his bravery.
When I worked at the Bellsouth building in Jonesboro,Georgia I used to jog to the Confederate cemetery and pick up trash ,all the while thinking,"What is a Yankee doing in this cemetery ?"The history of it always touched me.It seemed like sacred ground.
I was a history major in college in New York but never "used" it in my subsequent career.The love of it has come back in surprising and very satisfying ways.

families

To those closest to me,it is not news that my sister and I were estranged.Per her desire, we had not spoken for four years.Last October, found her dying unexpectedly.She was 68 years old.
I went into her hospital room with great misgiving , not knowing how I would be received.I grabbed her very cold hand and showed her a picture of my granddaughter and we again became a family.I treasure every second of the time I spent at her side,little though it was.
I found the following in a book that I have been recently reading and it stunned me."For families will not be broken.Curse and expel them ,send their children wandering ,drown them in floods and fires and old women will make songs out of all these sorrows and sit on porches and sing them on mild evenings.Every sorrow suggets a thousand songs and every song recalls a thousand sorrows and so they are infinte in number and all the same."- "Housekeeping",Marilynne Robinson
Since her passing in mid December, I have had three dreams about her.In each one, she and I are laughing or smiling and she makes it very clear to me that she is at peace.Indeed nothing divides families.