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Providence

by Reginald Garrigou-lagrange, Trans. By Bede Rose

"Wonderfully earnest and engaging. Think of Robert Persig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or B.F. Skinner in Walden Two."
-- Los Angeles Time Book Review

"A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet"
laid out for us with an originality and an clarity that few would deny."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"Deserves high marks as a serious--and all too rare--effort that is unflinchingly
engaged with fundamental life-and-death concerns."
-- The Atlanta Constitution Journal

Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael is one of today's most beloved novels of spiritual adventure. Winner of the half-million dollar Turner Tomorrow Award, the book has become a backlist bestseller and garnered rave reviews. "From now on," wrote Jim Britell in the Whole Earth Review, "I will divide the books I have read into two categories--the ones I read before Ishmael and those read after." Thousands of readers have responded to this unique and captivating story of a man who enters into a dialogue with a full-grown gorilla about humanity's place in nature. Now Daniel Quinn follows Ishmael with another story of a spiritual quest--this time his own--in PROVIDENCE: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest.

From the Inside Flap
Providence is Quinn's fascinating memoir of his life-long spiritual voyage. His journey takes him from a childhood dream in Omaha setting him on a search for fulfillment, to his time as a postulant in the Trappist order under the guidance of eminent theologian Thomas Merton. Later, his quest took him through the deep self-discovery of psychoanalysis, through a failed marriage during the turbulent and exciting 60s, to finding fulfillment with his wife Rennie and a career as a writer. In Providence Quinn also details his rejection of organized religion and his personal rediscovery of what he says is humankind's first and only universal religion, the theology that forms the basis for Ishmael.

Providence is an insightful book that address issues of education, psychology, religion, science, marriage, and self-understanding, and will give insight to anyone who has ever struggled to forge and enact a personal spirituality.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael has become one of the most beloved novels of spiritual adventure ever to be published, an underground bestseller that The Austin Chronicle described as "Suspenseful, inventive and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year."  Now Daniel Quinn follows Ishmael with another story of a spiritual quest--this time his own.  Providence is a moving and insightful book about the struggle to forge and enact a personal spirituality.

The following excerpt is taken from a scene early in Providence, in which Quinn has entered a Trappist monastery, and subsequently taken a vow of silence.  The mysterious encounter that takes place shortly after he arrives there will affect the course of the rest of his life. . . .



I'm not only not a lover of what is commonly called nature, I'm not even a lover of the outdoors. You can't see much of it right now, in the middle of the night, but there's a regular jungle right outside those windows. Make your way through that jungle for about twenty feet--more or less straight down--and you'll come to a lovely little stream. I'm sure it's lovely, though I've never seen it. I've never traveled those twenty feet, and I doubt if I ever will. I bless  the stream and wish it well. I don't need to see it to do that.

I give you this background so you can appreciate this fact: For my first three weeks at Gethsemani, I was kept inside. I mean I didn't set a foot outside for even a moment--and was completely content not to set a foot outside. It was a constant round of chapel, classroom, refectory, chapel, cell, chapel, classroom, refectory, chapel, cell. The weather may have conspired in this, I don't remember. I didn't even notice that I'd been indoors for three weeks, wasn't thinking about it at all, when one evening after we'd talked, Merton said, "I think it's time you went outside."

I stared at him blankly. I'd practically forgotten that there was such a thing as outside. Father Louis explained that the next morning he and the novices would be going out to perform various chores, and I could come along and gather kindling.

Go out and gather kindling? What a marvelous idea! I, the non-nature-lover and nonoutdoorsman, was suddenly enchanted by the prospect of standing out under the open sky and breathing in the chilly spring air. Suddenly I was sick to death of books and walls, stale air and electric lights, hard floors and chairs. Suddenly I was overcome by a longing to hear wind in the trees, to see birds in the sky.

The next morning I woke up breathless, literally bursting with anticipation, though of course there were all sorts of things to get through first, like Mass and breakfast and our first class of the day. Finally, when the class was over, Father Louis came over and told me I could stay behind and read while he and the others went to change into work clothes. I'd be going out in my usual clothes, a sport coat and flannel trousers...

Why didn't I change as well? Well, let me see. How to explain it? I didn't have any work clothes of my own to change into, and the others weren't changing into jeans or overalls or anything like that, they were changing into Trappist work clothes. In other words, they were exchanging an indoor religious costume for an outdoor religious costume, and since I was still a postulant, I couldn't join them in that.

Even so...? Yes, that's an interesting question. Even if I wasn't changing clothes, what was the point of my staying behind? It's a good question. I guess the answer is that they had something else to do that didn't require my presence, because I know that at least half an hour passed while I sat there with my book. I have no idea what I was reading. I doubt if I was doing much reading anyway. I was too excited.

Finally my guardian angel appeared. I started to get up out of my chair, but he signaled me to stay put.

"We're going outside now," he signed. "Father Louis says you're to stay here and read."

"No, no!" I signed back frantically. I was frantic because I knew there was no way I could correct this misunderstanding. If I could have spoken, there would have been no problem. I would have said, "No, no, my dear fellow, you've definitely got it wrong. Father Louis told me quite distinctly yesterday that I was to go out with you today. It wasn't even my idea! He said, and I quote: "I think it's time you went outside.' And just half an hour ago, at the end of class, he told me he'd send you to get me when it was time to go. Look, if you have the slightest doubt, just go back and ask him!"

But I couldn't convey anything as complicated or subtle as that. All I could manage with my hands was: "No, no, Father Louis say I go outside now!"

My angelic guardian angel smiled beatifically at my denseness, shook his handsome golden head, and repeated his message slowly and emphatically, as if to a child: "Father Louis says you're to stay here and read!" With that, he turned and scurried away.

I was thunderstruck, completely crushed. Tears flooded my eyes. It wasn't just disappointment that overwhelmed me. In a single moment, the full realization of what lay in store for me in this life crashed in on me like a pulverizing boulder. I had been reduced to rubble, to nothing. Through a misunderstanding, of course!--but that was no consolation. On the contrary, that was the whole point! For the rest of my life I would be open to such misunderstandings at any moment. At any moment at all, it could happen that someone would walk up to me and deliver some ego-shattering command or message--even doing it with the kindest of intentions, just like my guardian angel. In fact, this encounter with my guardian angel was a perfect example of what the future held for me. This young man, moved by nothing but the sweetest benevolence, had walked in and obliterated me with a smile and a few gestures to which I was completely helpless to reply.

Yes, helpless was the word. I was embracing a whole lifetime of helplessness, of utter vulnerability. As I sat there alone in that bleak, empty classroom, my mind went dark with despair.

But of course I was under no obligation to embrace this life. I had no illusions on that score. If I wanted to, I could be back at my room in the dormitory at St. Louis University in a matter of hoursforty-eight hours, probably. There I'd find three of the only four close friends I'd ever had--Tom Anderson, Jerry Long, and Bob Cahill. They'd be delighted to have me back in their midst, there was no doubt about that. We would go and have a celebratory hamburger at the Kangaroo Room of the Melbourne Hotel just around the corner. Or dinner at Garavelli's, or a pizza and a few bottles of beer at Parenti's. We could pick up the conversation where we'd left off--not even a month ago!--Marshall McCluhan, Ezra Pound, the Symbolists, all the dark conundrums of modern literature that Walter J. Ong expounded in his classes, from which we departed in a state of intellectual meltdown.

Oh, that would be fine!

So the situation wasn't so desperate after all. If things didn't work out here at Gethsemani, I had an immediate alternative. In fact, a very attractive alternative. Of course, I had to give the Trappist life a fair trial, another month at least. It wouldn't be so bad. In fact, it couldn't be so bad, because as I went along I would know that I was leaving myself a way out


It was at this point that I caught myself. What in the world was I doing? Because of a little disappointment--a very bitter disappointment, it's true--I was going to start living a lie. I was going to be behaving the same way as before, but now with an all-important interior difference: From moment to moment I was going to be holding out for myself the possibility of leaving. From now on I was going to spend every waking moment holding open my options: Well, if I can't stand this food, I can always leave. If I can't stand the way this teacher treats me, I can always leave. If I can't stand this kind of work, I can always leave. If I can't stand never having any time to myself, I can always leave. From this moment on it wasn't I who was going to be on trial, it was the monastic life


No, I said to myself. You've got to choose, once and for all. Once and for all, finally, and forever. Or get out right now, today. Shut down those options absolutely or walk away. You came here to put your life in the hands of God without reservation, and what you're doing right now is establishing your reservations: I will live in the hands of God if everyone is nice to me. I will live in the hands of God if things go my way. I will live in the hands of God if people don't come around and tell me, "No, you thought you were going outside, but you're not." I will live in the hands of God so long as I receive no crushing blows to my sense of dignity and self-determination.

You know what it means to live in the hands of God, I said to myself. It means abandoning your will utterly. It means letting him direct the course of your life--even in this trivial matter of going outside--without reservation.

You've got to choose. Now. And not provisionally. Not temporarily. You can say yes or you can say no, but you've got to say one or the other.

Choose. Yes or no. Now, once and for all.

I summoned my will. I'd never done such a thing in my life before--and to be honest I've never done it since. Never had to do it.

I summoned my will. I brought it up like a deep breath taken underwater.

I summoned my will and held it like a deep breath taken underwater.and said yes.

Yes, now, once and for all. No reservations. No more daydreams about St. Louis. That was over forever, for me. I was here.  Totally here, once and for all.

I released my will, ...

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