遇見．Thomas Merton

Timing is everything.

雖曾於恩偑姐的文字中讀過他，也從Chester MDM（註一）的口中聽過他的大名，只是向來沒有在書室留意過他的作品。昨天在學生會「清倉」的書攤中，一眼便鎖定了它；由選書到付款不足三分鐘，自己也解釋不了這衝動的投資（聽來也確有揮霍之嫌，不過這種購物習慣在我身上十年難得一見；我的兩位表妹最清楚，她們曾被我的猶豫不決氣得決定以後也不再陪我買衣服；仔細思量，除了因為捨不得花錢，也因為死心眼……）。

晚上躲在被窩裡讀它，才明白這是什麼一回事。

首先是Scott Peck的introduction：

"Contemplatives usually do withdraw from the world one way or another because they cannot tolerate too much experience. A frenetic amount of activity that another type of person might enjoy is usually experienced by the contemplative as so much overwhelming, incapacitating noise. The contemplative needs a great deal of solitude as much as he or she needs air. This is not because contemplatives desire to be immune to the world of experience or learning; to the contrary, it is because they do not want to be distracted from their learning by an excess of external stimuli."

再讀Merton的Author's Preface，我知道他將會成為我生命中另一位virtual mentor：

"When a thought is done with, let go of it. When something has been written, publish it, and go on to something else. You may say the same thing again, some day, on a deeper level. No one need to have a compulsion to be utterly and perfectly "original" in every word he writes. All that matters is that the old be recovered on a new plane and be, itself, a new reality. This, too, gets away from you. So let it get away...

...If the monastic life is a life of hardship and sacrifice, I would say that for me most of the hardship has come in connection with writing. It is possible to doubt whether I have become a monk (a doubt I have to live with), but it is not possible to doubt that I am a writer, that I was born one and will most probably die as one. Disconcerting, disedifying as it is, this seems to be my lot and my vocation. It is what God has given me in order that I might give it back to Him."

很高興可以在Henri Nouwen，蘇恩佩，C.S.Lewis，和Elie Wiesel之後多加一個名字。

遇見Thomas Merton，交織在跟她書信來往的經緯中……

nic：「那天晚上轉過了多少個念頭？不經意的一句，讓我驚訝。讓深藍歸還給海，把我的寧靜歸還給我」
友人：「那抹魔魅的深紫色﹐近來不時從記憶深處忽然浮現」
nic：「上星期夜半醒來的晚上，我又經歷了一次萬里無雲的澄明片刻；是一睜眼，知道了一件事」
友人：「人一天閃過念頭30多萬次 / 歸家途中﹐心裡忽爾明澄﹕[冬天離開了。]」

我和她，期待著那「又大又難的事」在我們面前開展。唯有contemplative的人才能盛載異象。我們想，我們等，我們期待，當discernment成為我們直覺的那一天。

註一：認識太多Chester(s)，MDM是my dear mentor，以此識別