5 things I learned as a leftist that are still (mostly) true
, which Mark Steyn calls "a must-read."
#1: “Do not depend on the hope of results”
My feelings about Thomas Merton have evolved. Like a lot of Catholic activists (male and female) I developed a bit of a crush on the (way too) prolific writer/Trappist monk cum hermit. Years later, I learned that he’d broken his vows by having an affair with a nurse he’d met while making a rare trip “into town” for medical treatment – a fact his more rabid fans still try to play down.
Eventually, I came to agree with the psychiatrist who’d scolded Merton:
“You want a hermitage in Times Square with a large sign over it saying ‘Hermit.’ “
A man of his time – the 1950s and 60s – Merton felt obliged to comment on the political events of the day, including the inner workings of the peace movement. Even during my “crush” phase, as an admittedly low-level hands-on activist, I balked at the nerve of a cloistered monk with zero experience as an organizer, doling out advice on tactics and strategy. So I was both enchanted and annoyed by his famous “Letter to a Young Activist” at the time, and my feelings today are just as ambiguous.
The first line, however, has echoed in my mind ever since:
Do not depend on the hope of results
And much of the “Letter” offers timeless wisdom. (Your mileage may vary…):
…you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. (…)
The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen, and we can share in them; but there is no point in building our lives on this personal satisfaction, which may be denied to us and which after all is not that important.
The great thing, after all, is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth: and we turn the best things into myths. (…)
The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do His will, we will be helping in the process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand.
