Tomorrow is Saint Sylvester's Day and another year is gone. If only I knew what I did to justify my existence this year – aside from collecting author royalties with which the monastery supports General Motors by buying new trucks. There is only one thing – and that is better than anything else I have done in my life. For six months I served the Mass. This one experience teaches me to live in such a way that I do not care whether I live or die.
(Thomas Merton /1915–1968/, journal entry from December 30, 1949)
