After reading the December 8, 1968 journal entry of Thomas Merton and turning to the postscript of his death two days later, I am reminded of Malcolm X. El-hajj Malik El-shabbaz had died three years before Merton, and within a year of profound change of perspective during an Islamic pilgrimage, "Each hour here in the holy land enables me to have greater spiritual insight into what is happening in America between black and white." Upon returning to the States a white man in and adjacent car recognized him: "'Malcolm X!' he called out -- and when I looked, he stuck his hand out of his car, across at me, grinning. 'Do you mind shaking hands with a white man?' Imagine that! Just as the traffic light turned green, I told him, 'I don't mind shaking hands with human beings. Are you one?'
I finished Malcolm X.'s autobiography with a poignant sense of joy and loss. Gladdened by his awakening but sorrowful that the greater fruits of that bloom had been cut short with violence.
When the young Thomas Merton began his spiritual journey, his enthusiasm for his path was tinged with a dogmatism of Catholic inerrancy. Yet, the mature Father Louis, as he was known among the Cistercians, is keenly interested in other contemplative traditions. Three days before his accidental death, he wrote of his sacred experience gazing upon the giant stone Buddhas of Polonnaruwa, Celyon: "The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya... everything is emptiness and everything is compassion, I don't know when in my life I have ever in my life had such a sense of duty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. Surely,... my Asian pilgrimage has come clear and purified itself."
On the eighth floor of the Bobst library, I sit behind a massive wood desk in front of the large windows overlooking the snow-covered Washington Square Park. An additional benefit is that I am near the stack of dictionaries — including an original 1828 edition of Webster's.
Three lines inspired by The Five Remembrances
For fear of illness, I lost my health
For fear of aging, I forgot my youth
For fear of death, I misspent my life
A foot of snow will fall tonight, the sky is pink over Manhattan.
From The Legal Situation of "unlawful/unprivileged combatants I understand that the Geneva Convention III pertains to Prisoners of War; where those conditions of combatancy are not satisfied, Geneva Convention IV applies to unlawful combatants and still requires humane treatment and prohibits torture and collective punishment. Finally, Article 75 of Protocol 1 requires humane treatment in any case.
I am reading "The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton." In addition to the content of travel musings, comparative religion, and poems, I'm intrigued by the form. How did he work and write? (He kept a notepad, and a public and private journal with excerpts from readings on the left side page.) In a class yesterday I saw a fellow student with a box of index cards, of which I will ask about -- no doubt.
Coming from a computer background where sharpening and sharing one's tools and craft is a cultural given, the lack of conversation in the humanities about how we take notes, manage bibliographies, and write is surprising to me.
In the moonlight, I make noodles
for tomorrow's soup.
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