A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, ’twill never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.– Stephen Foster
The first person I saw die was named Charlie. I don’t know much else about him because he came in unconscious and would not wake up again. I was a chaplain intern in the hospital where he had been brought after falling and sustaining a brain injury. After he was removed from life-sustaining treatment, his autonomic nervous system kept him breathing for an unusually long time — like several days. What family he had were far away, so there was no one who had known him who could be present to him. All we knew was that he had a tattoo on his neck that simply said “Country.”
So we played country music in the room where he was lying. A couple of folks came and played live music at one point. Other times, volunteers would come and sit with him so that he would not die alone. By the time of my last overnight shift, the pool of volunteers had run dry. A clock radio played a commercial country radio station from the nightstand. I could not listen to that for long.
Between calls to other parts of the hospital, I would go sit with Charlie. On the afternoon of the last day, I went in and put on an Alternative Country station from Pandora. I watched the condensation gather in Charlie’s oxygen mask each time he exhaled. John Prine started singing “My Old Kentucky Home”. A little cloud formed in the mask and quietly dissipated. Another cloud did not form. I called the nurse. I did not know Charlie, but I knew he had changed.
So it was not without a sense of solemnity that I pulled into my last overnight spot on this trip, the My Old Kentucky Home State Park campground near Bardstown, Kentucky. This was not exactly wilderness, since I could see the lights of a Mexican restaurant from my tent. I ate enchiladas, read about Sun House‘s TJ making Rasta Pasta, and prepared to visit the Abbey of Gethsemane the following day.
For the unfamiliar, Gethsemane was the home of Thomas Merton, the 20th Century Trappist monk (who I was into before he was cool). The place held — holds — a mythic status in the mind of many of us who have begun with The Seven Story Mountain and dug deeper and deeper into Merton’s voluminous writings. I was especially excited to be meeting an actual Trappist who had studied under Merton.
That sit-down was not until the afternoon, so I had a leisurely breakfast and drove out to the Abbey in time for Sext, an unfortunately named prayer service that marks the middle of the day, after which I ate my sandwich and read my book for a bit. I also set out to take some pictures, starting with some exterior shots.
The first short hill I climbed, one with a statue of a saint of some sort, had decent views of the fields and woods, but no good perspectives on the Abbey itself. Across the road, however, was a knob that provided a number of excellent possibilities. I snapped away for a while, thinking about how this would make flex-worthy content on Instagram.
After a bit, it seemed like I had worn out all of the possible angles available for photographs, and I turned my attention to what was on the hill with me: a couple of decaying lawn chairs and a jumble of limestone topped by a cross. Previous visitors had left mementos on the pile, and I had a notion to do the same but lacked a suitable trinket. Scanning the ground, I found a dried seed pod from a pokeberry bush. Concocting a narrative of how this represented all I had been carrying — the resentment, the anger, the fear — which had to die in order for new life to emerge, I set the seeds on this erstwhile altar.
As I was doing this, another pilgrim’s offering caught my eye: a rock painted turquois with darker blue writing. Some of the phrases were familiar, and I assumed this was a transcription of Thomas Merton’s famous prayer.1 When I looked more closely, however, my heart leapt to my throat and everything but me and this rock faded into the background. Whoever had left this token had written “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here to do your bidding.” This prayer accompanies the Seventh Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings,” a step I have been trying to practice for 32 years. I knew instantly that I would no longer have to live bound by resentment and anger which had been a part of me for months and months, especially this past one. I could experience a new freedom and a new happiness. To this day, I have no adequate way to express my gratitude for the grace I felt at that moment, for the grace that continues to be the most important fact of my life.
I felt bad for Brother Paul. On the recommendation of a mutual friend, he agreed to spend some time with me, but he did not bargain for this. I was kind of a wreck and there was no way we could talk about anything else until I tried to explain to him why. Thank God, he was willing to listen as I told my story and did not feel the need to make it anything other than what it was in the moment. At one point, I had to interrupt our conversation to make sure he saw that there was a whale on the enclosure all. He allowed as how there was a whale, at least as long as I, Jonah, was willing to see it.
In talking about our capacity as human beings to deny the reality in front of our eyes (the truth that a marriage has been extinct for some time, for instance) Brother Paul quoted Emily Dickenson from heart.2 He also borrowed my camera and took a few shots before opening his cupboards and offering me a few prints of his own photographs. I tried to be restrained so as not to seem greedy and only took a few. I should have allowed myself a few more. Maybe there will be another opportunity. In any event, I had to get back to my campsite. It was my last night on the road, and the sun was going down.
- 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 that 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 will I 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. ↩︎
- A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside –
A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down –
Emily Dickinson ↩︎