Furnace of Ambivalence

I ran into this phrase, furnace of ambivalence, when recently I had occasion to reread Thomas Merton’s wonderful book, The Sign of Jonas.  If you don’t know, Jonas is Jonah---famed man of the whale story in the Bible.  The book was published in 1953 but is an account of his earlier years in the monastery, Gethsemani, in Kentucky.  And so, it is like reading someone’s journal or diary.  

Merton joined the Trappist monastery in the knobs of Kentucky.  This was an unusual move for this man of the world.  He was born in France, had been schooled in England, while spending some time with his maternal grandparents on Long Island in New York.  He basically partied his way through year one of college at Cambridge in England.  So his grandparents and others insisted he come home, get serious and get on with life.  And so, he landed at Columbia University in New York.  During the 1930s he flirted with Communism, but encountered a few people who began to attract him to the Catholic Church.  Within a four-year period, he was baptized and decided to become a monk.  In December 1941, he entered the monastery as a postulant.  

If you are aware of history, the United States would soon enter the fracas of war.  People his age would be expected to be working for the war effort---either in the military or helping the war machine defeat the threats in Europe and the Pacific regions.  If a monk begins to feel like staying in that way of life is possible, he becomes a novice.  One is a novice for two years, learning about the monastic way of life and discerning whether God is calling you to that.  If the answer is affirmative, then the novice makes solemn vows, which essentially means he or she is going to commit to that way of life and that monastery for life.  Merton’s book charts this period of his time.

His monastery, Gethsemani, went through amazing changes in his first decade---the 40s.  I have been there many times, so I can understand the situation.  When Merton arrived, there may have been seventy monks or so.  Perhaps because of the war, there was an influx of men who wanted to explore that monastic way of life.  Merton asks the reader to understand the monastery at that time.  Now “the monastery of seventy grows to a hundred and seventy and then to two hundred and seventy.” (4)  I like the way he puts it: “Thus two hundred and seventy lovers of silence and solitude are all packed into a building that was built for seventy.” (5)

The nature of the place changed.  Building was taking place.  Machines were brought in to do the work needed to accommodate, what is in effect, a new monastery.  I want to share a couple lines from Merton and then reflect on them.  He observes, “The young monk who makes his vows at Gethsemani in this unusual moment of crisis and transition is therefore exposing himself to something far more than the ordinary vicissitudes of a Trappist monastery.”  

At this point, he offers an intriguing, trenchant interpretation.  This new monk, Merton says, “is walking into a furnace of ambivalence which nobody in the monastery can fully account for and which is designed, I think, to serve as a sign and a portent to modern America.”  Here is the wonderful image, which I use as the title of this reflection.  Merton describes the scene as a furnace of ambivalence.  I should think simply deciding to try out living in a monastery (becoming a postulant) is daunting enough.  But to be part of this experiment with your life in the midst of so many others in the same boat has to be doubly daunting.  Within a very few years, there are more new people than old-timers.  

People can speculate why so many folks wanted to explore monasticism at this juncture of American history is interesting.  But even coming up with an answer would not have alleviated the problem of dealing with so many human souls searching for meaning and purpose in life.  No doubt, Merton had a feel for this, because this characterizes his own journey which landed on the doorsteps of that Kentucky spiritual reserve.  

It is fascinating how Merton uses the Old Testament story of Jonah to interpret this phenomenon.  He sees this influx of people into an alternative way of life in prophetic terms.  It is a commentary on American life and culture.  The monastery becomes a furnace.  The image of furnace suggests testing and purifying.  Some things are destroyed in a furnace; other things are transformed.  

Ambivalence is the place of both yes and no---or maybe better, I don’t know!  Indeed, ambivalence is the “place of maybe.”  I have been in that place many times.  If we think about Jonah, we are reminded that Jonah is running away from God and from responsibility.  I certainly have tried that a time or two.  A new monk would go to a place like Gethsemani to explore whether he was willing to die to his old life to be born again into a new life.  Many of us face this prospect without ever going to a monastery.  Some of us feel like Jonah in the sense we have fallen overboard---or been thrown over!  Where is our “whale” to deliver us?

If I find myself in the furnace, will I be destroyed---or will I allow transformation?