Canadian Thanksgiving, Libraries, Books, and Random Displays

Thomas Merton: when the trees say nothing

For some days now I’ve picked away at this post. I’ve written and tossed, written and tossed.

I wrote about how grateful I am that in the spring I’ll see the fruition of years of work; a box will be delivered to my house, the first since 2019, filled with new books with my name on them.

I wrote about what it is to set aside one day a year to be thankful.

I wrote with meandering thoughts.

And then felt restless and unreal. While I wrote not with untruth—yes, I am truly grateful to have had a book accepted, to have worked on it, to feel good about it—I felt as if I was missing… I don’t know what. When I’m missing something, I like to be able to figure out what it is. But we spend a lot of time in that mode as writers, do we not?

Mostly I felt like having a nap. So I did.

After that, I felt like reading. Reading is a comfort. Active comfort.

I put on my boots and a warm vest, and made my way to the central library in the city, and there found five books, two planned for, and other volumes I stumbled over.

A thought came then, as I went down yet another escalator and eyed those shelves that the librarians set out at the foot of those moving steps, with enticing covers. And usually better titles! Memories of books I’ve discovered on those random shelves came to me, and made me smile. Some of those books have been path-changers for me. While I’m not easily convinced by strategically placed sugary items in grocery store shelves, or things flashing on my old television or new computer screen, putting books in front of me is a different thing altogether. Especially if the cost of them is covered by the small handful of tax dollars that my library system costs. Next to nothing.

I buy many books through the year, but I buy carefully. Libraries, however, allow me to fill my arms and my pack with books to take home and explore. The best among them I buy copies to re-read and mark up.

And yes, with these thoughts, I felt utterly blessed and thankful.

I’ve been curious about Thomas Merton for a long time. I’ve read some few of his words, but he’s one of those people I’ve read more about than his actual words. Or I’ve read his words as quoted by others.

There’s a lot of this in our world now, perhaps due to the sheer amount of human toil and output over centuries. Though he was on this planet not that long ago—so that’s not a reason to read “about.”

I picked up a book of his nature writing, when the trees say nothing. Yes, lowercase. Someone had not put it back in its place, but left it off to the side, front cover revealed.

At home, I went through the five, spending a bit of time with a few pages in each.

I am aware lately of my growing need to slow. I’m about to go away for a few weeks, so I think some part of me in preparing for that time—a time of writing, ‘hard writing,’ as I think of it, and also relaxing. I’m not used to relaxing. I’m not convinced I know how anymore. If I ever have. I’ve ingested my full of the inherited Protestant Work Ethic. Nasty stuff.

And then I opened when the trees say nothing and began to read. I do live in a particularly rainy part of the world, and Merton was writing from his hermitage in Kentucky. The opening piece placed me solidly at home:

“In this wilderness, I have learned how to sleep again. I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it.”

He’s evoking a deep connection that I forget about too often. I had to re-read before moving on to a piece about the weather. Don’t we always bemoan the uselessness of weather-talk? It feels like so much filler. As writers, we’re reminded not to bother putting it into dialogue unless it moves plot. Or develops character. No one will care, they say. But Merton says:

“Our mentioning of the weather—our perfunctory observations on what kind of day it is, are perhaps not idle. Perhaps we have a deep and legitimate need to know in our entire being what the day is like, to see it, and feel it, to know how the sky is grey, paler in the south, with patches of blue in the southwest, with snow on the ground, the thermometer at 18, and cold wind making your ears ache. I have a real need to know these things because I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place, and a day in which I have not shared truly in all this is no day at all.”

These words stopped me because, yes, I am one of those people who scoffs at the urge to speak of the weather—even though I do it myself. Forced to, I’ve thought.

But these words made me think again about this, the sharing. The why, the possible worthiness of such exchange. Maybe this is true “developing character.”

When something causes me to take a refreshed look, it catches my attention.

The day before I was reading Parker J. Palmer (author of The Courage to Teach), and a line about “how can we expect to love or save something unless we believe it’s sacred?” caught me. He was speaking to our home, the environment. But applicable to more.

In when the trees say nothing, the first section is “to know living things.” After that comes words on “seasons.” I’m guessing that he recorded these snippets daily, and the editor selected. After the seasons come a series with “elements.” Followed by topics such as “creatures,” “festivals,” and more. The mentions of types of birds, plants and trees, constellations… as I read I am mindful that he is always close to his home, and the observations are of things he has seen many times over. Yet always fresh. And I think about how that is true when I’m in the mountains. I can return to the same place we’ve set up a tent before, and still see it anew. Mountains do that.

More:

“Two superb days. When was there ever such a morning as yesterday? Cold at first, the hermitage dark in the moonlight… a fire in the grate (and how beautiful firelight shines through the lattice-blocks and all through the house at night!). Then the sunrise, enormous yolk of energy spreading…”

I had to stop, and search out images of that hermitage. What came up revealed a stone floor, cinderblock and square house, with both fireplace and utilitarian woodstove. Uncomfortable-looking chairs, a plain table to double as desk.

Not an inviting place. A place in need of the shine of firelight.

But Merton’s words are warming.

I read for a long time, page after page. Some sections I read over again. One, half a dozen times. And I slowed.

I wonder how it worked, to record briefly, anything from maybe thirty words to a short page, about his natural world. Every so often, one concludes with some observation; meanings double, treble. Some are sound and image that feel to me to be—more than anything—a response to his surroundings. There isn’t a distinct pattern.

“I am surprised how easy it is to follow a familiar path even by starlight alone.”

Or the line to conclude one note :

“It is my fifty-third birthday.”

Or the off-handed tone of a young person to conclude an otherwise lovely bite… as if the loveliness is so coincidental. He doesn’t feel any great need to be beautiful—all around him is quite enough:

“Under my feet is the richness of all the new crushed limestone, or whatever it is that has been put on all the paths in the garden.”

In a handful of days I leave to go to Costa Rica. I think I’m going to spend some time, each day, not venturing far from the house, but seeing, feeling, describing, evoking, what is around me.

And feeling thankful.

For those who write the words that press themselves onto them, no matter what.

Thankful for walks. Thankful for librarians who do random displays, and those who don’t quickly put away books that are left out of place, too!

And for each of you who read this weekly missive, and toil away with your own words—no matter what.

Thank you so much.

Alison