the uncertainty of waiting

Was Merton 50 years ahead of himself, or is this something that is always with us - the uncertainty of waiting ... ?

"Ever increasing frenzy, tension, explosiveness of this country. You feel it in the monastery with people like Raymond. In the priesthood with so many upset, one way or another, and so many leaving. So many just cracking up, falling apart. People in Detroit buying guns. Groups of vigilantes being formed to shoot Negroes. Louisville is a violent place, too. Letters in U.S. Catholic about the war article -- some of the shrillest came from Louisville. This is really a mad country, and an explosion of the madness is inevitable. The only question -- can it somehow be less bad than one anticipates? Total chaos is quite possible, though I don't anticipate that. But the fears, frustrations, hatreds, irrationalities, hysterias, are all there, and all powerful enough to blow everything wide open. One feels that they want violence. It is preferable to the uncertainty of "waiting"." (March 12, 1968)

- Merton, The Other Side of the Mountain, pp. 66-67