Vanderbilt grad students were given their own carrels hidden deep in the darkened library stacks of Kirkland Hall. Each carrel consisted of a small desk, a gooseneck lamp, and whatever books you were currently reading or just wanted to leave out on your desk to show how smart you were.
On my desk I kept The Journals of Thomas Merton. Every time I went to the carrel, I read some Merton. He’d been a student at Columbia when he converted to Catholicism. Maybe converted isn’t a strong enough word. After Merton left Columbia, he eventually wound up at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Three years later, he took vows to become a Trappist monk. If you’re not familiar with the Trappists, basically, they don’t talk.
Thomas Merton stayed at the abbey for twenty-seven years. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain sold a couple of million copies—a hugely unlikely bestseller about a student who becomes a monk.
During my second semester at Vanderbilt, I was smoking a little too much weed. I finally said to myself, “If you’re going to be a writer, you need to get control of your life. Do it. Now. Like, tomorrow.”
So that weekend, I drove to the Trappist monastery at Gethsemani. I just showed up at the front gates. A couple of the monks would meet deliveries or visitors, and they were allowed to talk to anyone who came to the door.
A very nice, very polite monk spoke to me. He said, “Tell me why you’re here, James.”
I answered as honestly as I could. “I’m just sort of wandering in space and time. Lost might be the right word. I’m not loving the life I’m leading. I think I want to be a writer. I also think that might be an absurd idea. Not sure. I need to think things through. Maybe I need to pray. I read a lot of Thomas Merton. Oh, and I smoke too much pot.”
The nice monk gave me a mini-lecture. He said, “Life is like a football game, James. If you run really fast but you step out-of-bounds, well, the touchdown doesn’t count.”
I couldn’t help thinking, Boy, I wish this nice guy wasn’t talking. Where’s the vow of silence when you need it?
Anyway, I got to stay at Gethsemani for eleven days. And, boy, did it straighten my ass out. I committed to trying to become a writer, committed to whatever it would take to make that happen. I basically stopped smoking weed. I think from the time of that self-imposed retreat until now, I’ve smoked it only two or three times. I’m not judging all the pot smokers out there, even where it’s still illegal. I’m just doing what’s right for me.
I deflect a lot with humor but I have a very serious side. During my teenage years in Newburgh, I thought a lot about becoming a priest. At Gethsemani I thought about it again. There was a simplicity to life there that was appealing. I wanted to write but I wasn’t sure that I could make it. I also wondered whether I was cut out for marriage. My parents fought constantly, so much so that my sisters and I called them “the Bickersons.” Would I end up becoming that kind of father and husband? I just didn’t know. So I stayed at the monastery longer than I’d planned. And I prayed.
If you stay as a guest at Gethsemani, you don’t have to follow any of the rituals, but you can. That’s what I did. Brother James.
The Trappists go to bed every night around seven thirty. They get up at three thirty in the morning. They go to chapel, pray, then go out to the surrounding fields and do nasty manual labor. They go back to chapel for Mass. They sing a lot of hymns, and, boy, can they sing. The monks all looked like they were in terrific shape, by the way. They eat smart—rice and bread, fresh veggies, a couple of giblets of meat. After breakfast, they go out and work in the fields again.
They pray, they work, they pray again, they sleep. They do this every day, seven days a week. Kind of like the coronavirus shelter-in-place routine. Only worse. But the monks seemed to love it. I rarely saw a long face.
One of the Trappists apparently explained my situation to a priest who was visiting there, a young guy who was questioning whether he wanted to continue to be a priest.
One afternoon, the young priest and I took a walk in the woods. We had a fine talk. I enjoyed his company. He openly talked about the troubles he was having in his parish, which were sexual in nature. I talked about starting a different kind of life for myself. At a certain point, deep in the woods, the priest said, “Can I give you my blessing?”
I shrugged a major shrug, shoulders up around my ears. “I guess. I never really had this happen. Get a blessing. But sure.”
The priest said, “Well, kneel.”
So I knelt in front of this priest way out in the woods. He laid a hand on my forehead and gave me his blessing.
Then he knelt down in front of me and said, “Will you give me your blessing?”
I thought about it for a couple of seconds—then I gave him my blessing. I made it up on the spot. It must have been pretty good because tears came into his eyes.
Eventually I figured out that the Trappist monk’s life might have been great for Thomas Merton but it wasn’t for me. I haven’t given anyone my blessing since that day in the woods behind Gethsemani. It was kind of cool, actually. I could be up for it again.