11:30am
Came into work since I missed work yesterday. Stayed up later than I wanted to watching Human Target DVD and last night’s new episode. It is true that it feels like watching a movie production with this one like they indicated in the producer’s notes. Read more in “follow the Ecstasy”. I think Griffin is better at writing his own journal than doing the biography. Or maybe it’s because he never did finish the book, it was still in draft when he died. The method he used to do the biography is to present Merton mostly in his own words from the notes and journals. Since there are so many Merton’s journals out, it makes the reader want to go to the original for a closer read. Or maybe that’s Griffin’s intention anyway. I will read merton’s journals after this one.
One side effect of reading the journals is the motivation to prompt me to write more. Not for an audience, but for myself to keep a kind of a day to day record. It’s easier when I am reading something and that always triggers my desire to write down my thoughts. But other days, when I’m off and away from a writing device doing other things like spinning or knitting or dancing, it would a challenge to remember everything that I want to jot down.
Typing on anything other than a real keyboard also presents a problem. Thoughts flows more easily when I can type as they come. When I slow down to type on the iPad or phone, those fleeting ones just went ahead and left me. I think journal writing is the best form of writing. You don’t have to write when there is no inspiration. It’s not like a novelist who has to come up with something to write about.
9:10pm
Just watched a recorded operah show about the military families. Tears just fell when I listened to their stories, husband wounded now has problem talking and walk, old mom driving five or six hours to her son’s grave to read his childhood story. Yes, operah was right that we have pushed those thoughts about the soldiers and their families to the back of our mind and we, or I have not done anything for them. Not even keeping them in our consciousness on a daily basis. It’s a crime. It’s something that I should keep and hold in my thoughts and prayers.
Came home from work and felt tired. E is sick and has a fever and coughs. But she still came up and had dinner with us. And we had a nice dinner together. After having the leftovers which was still delicious, i had a hard time keeping my eyes open trying to start Mertons’s fifth volume “dancing in the waters of life”. Finally gave up and came into the bedroom, brushed my teeth and washed my face thinking I would take a short nap. But it actually woke me up and i watched a couple of episodes of operah.
It reminds me of Merton’s position against the war and discrimination. A lone voice at the time but he held the conscience for the time.