I Am Through You So I Read online

  We managed to keep ourselves warm quite well with our wood stoves; on the wall’s top shelf, it was even warm enough to coax alfalfa seed to give us sprouts. But on floor level, a little pile of snow, blown in by the wind through a hole in the wall, would not melt. Obviously, the place was not entirely winterproof after all. During the worst storm of that winter, we had to flee to the lighthouse in the middle of the night. The lighthouse—by permission of “Captain,” the cat—housed Steve Cancellari of the U.S. Coast Guard; his wife, Mary; and their daughter, Maggie, as well as their baby boy. We would normally see them only on Sundays, when they would take us in their motorboat to Mass at Southwest Harbor. That could become a dangerous little voyage, as it did on Christmas Day. When we set out that morning, the sea was as smooth as glass, but after the service, the waves were so high that Steve would not attempt the crossing back until hours later. And it was a daring attempt: Dick and I could hardly bail the water out of the boat fast enough to keep up with the waves pouring over the side, while Mary tried to calm the crying children. Despite all his skill, Steve was unable to maneuver the boat to the correct position at the dock, so that we ended up carrying the children ashore through waist-deep water that was cold as ice. We celebrated the rest of Christmas Day in bed keeping warm, helped by whatever alcoholic beverages we could find. And if motorized crossings could get dangerous, they were nothing compared to the rowing. More than once, we thought our last hour had come. But this kind of “sweet danger, ripening” is part of a hermit’s life as well.4

  I got to experience a very different facet of that life in the high desert of New Mexico. There, monks of Mount Saviour led by Father Aelred Wall had founded the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in 1964. I was privileged to experience Lent on my own in an adobe hut not far from the monastery. Over that period, the joint celebration with the Brothers became a source of strength for my time alone because, there, the Hours of Prayer followed the cosmic rhythm of days and seasons, as St. Benedict had intended. Walking to prayer through the desert, under the night sky hung with stars like glittering dewdrops, hearing the coyotes howl around me—that was an incomparable beginning to the day. Then, depending on the position of the sun, different brown, red, violet, orange rock cliffs of the canyon would be illuminated during each hour of the day, until—after the last flare of sunset—dusk muted and faded the interplay of color. This hourly transformation of the light gave the days an outward and inward rhythm. A hermit monk is not supposed to decide on a fixed daily schedule (those who want that can find it in the monastery). He is supposed to remain free to be led by the Spirit that “blows where it chooses” (John 3:8). But this divine breath of life is expressed in the rhythm of the cosmos, and that rhythm will naturally shape the daily schedule in the hermitage, regardless how it might look in its details. The more we inwardly adapt to nature, the more we become capable of resisting the arbitrary willfulness that is so prominent in our society. I became particularly aware of this aspect of hermit life in those weeks that I spent—as foreshadowed by the name of the monastery—with Christ in the desert. I experienced yet another form of hermitage during my days on Sand Island in the Gulf of Mexico—in fact, barely an island, just a mass of rock big enough for a lighthouse. Its tower is 130 feet high, and if you’d lay it down on the disc of the island to look like the minute hand on the face of a clock, it would extend in any direction far beyond the circle of the shore. We—I was with my friend, Franciscan Father Augustin Gordon—had to search a long time before we found a fisherman ready to ferry us across the eighteen miles from Mobile, Alabama, to that forlorn dot out in the great blue. In the end, we did find one who was willing to do so, and he promised also to pick us back up at an agreed-upon day. Despite the high surf, he brought us close enough that we could throw our backpacks on land and jump after them; there was neither a dock, nor (despite the island’s name) even a grain of sand, only forbidding stone cliffs. The lighthouse keeper’s hut had burned down long ago, and the sea had swallowed its remains. All that was still standing was the lighthouse tower, and we had to climb up its outside to get to the door, which had apparently once led to the tower from the hut’s second floor. The spiral staircase was still in quite good condition, so we could get up into the lamp room, where we spread out our sleeping bags. We would meet every evening to celebrate the Eucharist together; the rest of the day we spent on the balcony that circled the tower below its highest peak—each of us by himself in silence, looking out at sky and sea. As we gazed into this distance, more and more “the world’s inner space” opened for us, and aloneness turned into all-oneness.

  In most cases, the places where I lived alone were far less extraordinary—though all of them became very dear to me. One remains especially dear: the hermitage that I had the honor of establishing with my friend Father John Giuliani. Together, we participated in the founding of Benedictine Grange in Connecticut. We called our experiment the Grange because the word described not only a small monastic outpost away from the monastery but also a storage space for grain; the eremitic lifestyle is part of the grain of monasticism to be stored for the future. For that reason, I had the privilege of setting up a hermitage in one half of our one-car garage. I even put in a ceiling to create a second floor, though that turned out to be so low that one could not stand upright in it. The British poet Kathleen Raine visited me, climbed up the ladder, carefully kept her head bowed, and sat down at the desk.5 Later, she dedicated a poem to me on the question of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. I did feel surrounded by angels at all times, but too dramatic an environment can become a distraction. In the most ordinary setting, genuine hermits can reach their essential goal: being alone with the All-One—solus cum Solo—following a flexible daily rhythm in harmony with nature, and keeping the heart “exposed” and open to “all the world’s tears.”6

  Finally, there is one hermitage where I felt particularly at home: Sky Farm Hermitage. My friend since 1968, Father Dunstan Morrissey, OSB, had received the donation of a large piece of land in Sonoma, California, north of San Francisco, and lived there as a hermit, providing hospitality for others seeking solitude and silence. He called the place Sky Farm, although its stony ground is not for farming and by day, there is not much to reap, but by night, the sky curves overhead like the arching branches of a tree heavy with harvest—a harvest of stars so close you might be tempted to reach out to pluck them. For years, my friends Sister Michaela and Brother Francis had been looking for the right place to realize the kind of hermitage they had been imagining, and I had tried to help them find that place. On the fourth of July 2002, I was visiting with them and again we spoke about their plans and hopes. This time, it occurred to me to write to Father Dunstan: “The two of us are not getting younger. What do you think of the idea that Michaela and Francis might live with you as your helpers now, and eventually take over Sky Farm?” By one of those rare coincidences, the postman who took my letter also brought a card from Father Dunstan to Brother Francis: “Would you send me Br. David’s address? I seem to have misplaced it, and I want to give Sky Farm to him.” As quickly as possible, the three of us visited Father Dunstan, and a month later, he had signed Sky Farm over to us.

  Here, for the first time, I had the privilege of calling a hermitage “home.” Between travels, I knew that Sky Farm was where I belonged. We did not see ourselves as owners of the land and the hermitages built on it, but as caretakers holding them in trust and being responsible for this little paradise. We planted trees—olive trees that may still give shade and fruit to other hermits there, a hundred years from now. Land where one plants trees gives the heart a home. Sky farm was home for my heart.

  In their own way, the pillar saints, or stylites, of the first Christian millennium, who did not venture down from their pillars for years, must have felt the same joy of belonging to a place that I felt. And since their pillars would daily attract pilgrims and seekers, they must have felt the joy of sharing as we did at Sky Farm. There were thre
e spaces available for guests, and they were nearly always occupied. Two of them were huge vats donated by a winery. All one needed for days of retreat fit comfortably in their spacious interiors. Just as we all carry the monk within us as an archetype, we also carry the hermit. Our immense joy at Sky Farm was making those who wanted to befriend their inner hermit feel at home, if only for a brief time. After all, do we ever have a home on this Earth for more than a brief time? The soap bubbles we used to blow at Sky Farm to celebrate Easter flew high above the chapel roof into the springtime sky—and popped. “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”7

  Dialogue

  JK: The Camaldolese monks with whom you spent fourteen years at Big Sur live their monastic calling in three forms: hermitage, monastic community, and social service. In your case, over the course of your life, your own calling has taken on all three forms. You were and are a spiritual teacher and travel a great deal. But there are also periods of contemplative life in community and periods of eremitic life. You have said that in hermitage, a monk is “exposed on the cliffs of the heart” and must find “all the world’s tears,” or at least leave his heart open to them. What specifically do you mean by that?

  DSR: That a hermit is fully facing life, not taking shelter in distractions, that’s what I meant. And that living as a hermit does not mean fleeing from community. Eremitic life leads those who practice it correctly into deep community with everyone and especially with those who are suffering.

  JK: How does it do that? What does it mean that “the world’s tears” are with me in the cave, or the hut, or whatever form the hermitage takes?

  DSR: Being alone and meditating make us more sensitive and strengthen our compassion for people, animals, and all creation.

  JK: But in a hermitage, how do I encounter all that? How does that work?

  DSR: From within, by way of meditation—simply because one is not distracted and does not let oneself become distracted. The world is full of tears. Virgil wrote, “Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt” (Freely translated, because the Latin is too dense to render it literally, it reads, “Tears, wherever we look, and dying that touches our soul”). Most of the time, we are looking away and prefer to let ourselves be distracted from tears and mortality. But hermits seek no escape; undistracted, they face life’s wonders, and all the world’s suffering as well.

  JK: It is said of biblical prophets all the way to Jesus but also of the early monks in the Scetis that they often had their key experiences in the desert.8 You also spent time repeatedly in the deserts of New Mexico where one is confronted with an emptiness and with oneself. In the face of such experiences, either one gives up or one grows inwardly. What did your desert experiences confront you with, and what did you find there?

  DSR: What I found in the desert was less important than what I did not find. There are no distractions in the desert. That allowed me to encounter nature in a new way—its sheer immensity, its overwhelming beauty, for example, the starry night sky. In the desert, one can see the stars so much more clearly. They appear so near, so large. But in the desert, we also confront the harshness of nature, for example, in the freezing chill of night.

  JK: One is also much more grateful for the resources one has available, even if it is only the water necessary for survival.

  DSR: Yes, one grows more grateful for all things. And if one lets oneself be affected by that experience instead of escaping into distraction or simply looking away, that gratitude leads to an inward deepening.

  JK: Were there any moments in which you thought, “Why am I doing this to myself? I’m in the wrong place!” Are there those moments as well?

  DSR: I cannot really remember any such moments. I was always most happy to be alone. The only times when I felt that I did not belong were not in solitude but in a crowd. Fortunately, that happens only rarely, for example, at a reception with many people and superficial conversations. For me, this is wasted time; but time spent in solitude never seemed wasted. Facing everything without armor, naked, was not always easy, but it always felt worthwhile.

  JK: What interests me is the psychodynamics in the moment in which I no longer have any distractions around me, where no one is talking to me, where I am relying completely on myself for survival. What is so primeval about this experience?

  DSR: Perhaps it is like water becoming still. Everything settles, grows clear, and one can see deeper and deeper. One can breathe more deeply, and something like a cosmic empathy begins to set in. One feels a connection with all things.

  JK: One is also in resonance with one’s surroundings, the time of day, perhaps with the few animals one sees in the desert?

  DSR: Yes. When one has no one else in the hermitage other than a fly, one feels a personal relationship with that fly. I have heard it told of hermits in ancient Ireland that they had friendly conversations with their mice.

  JK: And fed them?

  DSR: Of course. I’m sure they did.

  JK: Can you describe a typical day for you in the hermitage?

  DSR: I had no set scheme. “Do not make yourself a rule!” is, from early ages on, the advice given to hermits—do not set a fixed daily schedule for yourself. That does not mean that one sleeps for as long as one feels like in the morning. Basic monastic norms are not suspended in a hermitage. To follow the natural rhythm of the day is highly important. Here, one can consciously experience sunrise and dawn; one feels noon when everything grows still; one enjoys it when the day gets cooler of late afternoon and when evening falls. In a hermitage, one becomes far more conscious of the natural course of the day. Compared with this, the normal course of the day in the city is quite arbitrary; sunset and nightfall do not matter; one simply turns on the light and prolongs the day as much as one wants to. During very short winter days in the hermitage, I did use light as well, but otherwise I preferred to live in the rhythm of normal daylight. In winter, I sleep longer than in the summer. Originally, monks living in communal monasteries did that, too. St. Benedict mentions quite specifically that dinner should be held at such a time that everything is finished before dark. It is important to go with the natural flow of the day; it is much less important how one fills the day. One prays, reads, or writes, does some work with one’s hands—everything leisurely.

  JK: Did different projects lead you into hermitage?

  DSR: There have been times when I have retreated to work on a book project, but I would not describe that as eremitic life. The hermit’s only project is being alone and free. Other projects get in the way of that endeavor. Being alone with the All-One, as Plotinus said—this aloneness in and of itself is the project.

  JK: And that is different from loneliness.

  DSR: Being alone can take a positive and a negative form. I refer to the negative form as being lonely. We are lonely when we are cut off from others; being cut off is the negative aspect. If we feel cut off, we can be lonely amid a crowded room: we are not connected with the others; we feel inwardly cut off. We do not actually have a proper term for the positive form of aloneness.

  JK: Perhaps autonomy?

  DSR: No, the term autonomy does not resonate with the overtones of vulnerability that I hear in aloneness. (The hermit’s vulnerability is part of aloneness. Admittedly, that is not something one usually thinks of.)—Solitude may be a better term for the positive form of aloneness, but it may not be all that important to find the precise term for it. At any rate, a lonely person is cut off from community with others while the hermit is deeply connected with them. And the deeper and more encompassing this inner connection, the more authentic—and happy—eremitic life will be. Our greatest happiness, our truest joy, is connection with others. Our greatest sorrow is to be cut off from them.

  JK: You mentioned a hermit’s vulnerability just now. How is a hermit vulnerable?

  DSR: In confrontation with himself. Distraction is like an armor we can put on to avoid feeling this vulnerability. Why would someone want to make themselves vulnerable?
Because in the end, it is our authentic state: we are vulnerable. One must admit one’s vulnerability before one can be open with others in a true relationship.

  JK: But at least in that moment, the hermit does not have this relationship with other people.

  DSR: Oh yes, he does! Not only with other people, but with everything there is. This vulnerability is not only and not even primarily about the insults to which one may be exposed, but about allowing myself to experience how small I am, standing under the starry sky of the desert, the insignificance I feel there: I am nothing.

  JK: But that could also lead me to humility. It does not need to be an injury. Vulnerability, wounding—I sense that that is something stronger and relates with our darker side.

  DSR: What I meant by vulnerability comes very close to humility: not putting on any kind of armor.

  JK: Could one call that sensitivity, a special kind of awareness?

  DSR: Yes. Sensitivity, awareness, compassion—meaning shared joy and shared suffering. The sharing is the crucial aspect. Not cutting off but connecting.

  JK: I would like to get back to the darker sides with which we are confronted, so please bear with me for a moment. People are creatures of infinite want. Though most aren’t conscious of this, human hunger is marked by its longing for the absolute. However, anyone who tries to still this infinite longing by finite means, making it dependent solely on successful life circumstances, will have little reason for joy in life. On the contrary, there is a high likelihood that longing will slide into addiction—addictive actions or stimulants will then briefly enable a feeling of connection or lift the fear of disconnectedness. Translating the Latin root word religare as “to reconnect,” religion then becomes a different name for connectedness. But back to addictions: they come in many forms, beginning with the addiction to work, which many see as harmless and some even praise highly. But there is also addiction to power, sex, gambling, alcohol, or drugs. Especially in addiction, one feels a lack of freedom. What is interesting is that the Egyptian monks of the Scetis knew this already. In the doctrine of the eight temptations, they called it “the demonic.” One is, so to speak, no longer in charge of one’s own house. As the Viennese say about someone who is no longer in full possession of their own faculties, “It got him.” Do you as a hermit also know such conflicts with addictiveness?