Serendipitous Encounters

I recently read an article that said that serendipity was one of the hardest words in the English language to define.  One of the best definitions given was that serendipity is looking for a needle in a haystack and finding a farmer's daughter (or a farmer's son given your inclinations). 

Once upon a time I had a major crush on a minor poet. It was at a time in my life, shortly after I graduated from college, when I was trying to figure out what I was meant to do with my life.  I'd spent the spring and summer realizing what I wasn't meant to do-- get married way too young and go to law school.  And while I was fortunate enough after graduation to find a full time job that I could turn into a career, I knew that I wanted something more than the stability of a guaranteed paycheck for the next forty plus years of my life. 

So after work I hung around the fringes of the said poet's admirers-- at the club he managed, at his poetry readings, at his gigs.  (He was a much better musician than poet, which in hindsight wasn't saying much although I did walk into a record store in Warsaw almost a decade later and started laughing when I recognized they were playing one of his records.) Along the way I continued to discover what I didn't want to do but was still searching for the one thing I hoped would click. 


When a local press published the poet's first book, I headed to one of the area's independent bookstores-- when the DC area still had several independent bookstores-- to pick up a copy.  I knelt down by the shelf holding slim volumes of poetry by authors whose names fell in the first third of the alphabet and there, where the book by the object of my affection should have been, was a grey and black book called Raids on the Unspeakable.  I pulled out the misfiled copy with the intention of putting it back in the "Ms" where it belonged when I opened it up and started reading.  It wasn't even a book of poetry, rather some short essays punctuated by pages of Zenish brush stroke drawings.  I don't know what made me decide to buy it, but I did.  When I got home I read the essay on Flannery O'Connor as her name was one of the few familiar points of reference in the table of contents and then didn't think more about it until a few weeks later.

In addition to haunting poetry readings, in order to better understand the minor poet, I began reading more poetry.  His influences were Byron and Baudelaire (naturally) so I went to a used book sale in the basement of my public library hoping to find some volumes of their poetry to bring me up to speed.  I had to stand on my tip toes to reach the top shelf of the poetry section and as I was pulling down a dusty title a little  black and white picture floated down, seemingly from out of nowhere.  I caught it in mid-flutter and saw this image:

On the back it simply read, "Thomas Merton:  January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968."  It took a minute for me to recognize the name as the author of the book of misfiled prose I'd purchased earlier in the month but when it clicked, I figured the universe was trying to tell me something. 

I went upstairs and checked out The Seven Story Mountain.  That led me to Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Mystics and Zen Masters, Wisdom of the Desert, and The Way of Chuang Tzu.  I did read some Byron and Baudelaire in there as well.  I also began to write poetry again myself, something I hadn't done since I was a child.

I decided to take a poetry course at Georgetown to hone my writing which led to the start of a graduate degree in liberal studies.  One spring break I took a few books to the Outer Banks in order to get some reading done for a paper I was writing for my comparative religions class.  As I sat on a deserted beach reading New Seeds of Contemplation the thing I'd been looking for finally clicked.  The question wasn't what I was meant to do, but rather who I was meant to be . . .

Of course, the pursuit of that did lead me to what I was meant to do.  But that's another story.    For now I just want to give thanks for the life of Father Louis, aka Thomas Merton, on what would have been his 98th birthday and leave you with these words of wisdom from one of his oft-quoted prayers.

MY LORD GOD,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, from "Thoughts in Solitude"