Steve Georgiou is the author of The Last Transfiguration, and the recent Way of the Dreamcatcher, which captures his conversations with Robert Lax, a major minimalist poet and good friend to Thomas Merton. Meet Steve Georgiou at East West Books on September 10. See p. 15 for details.

Susanne Spitzer: Who was Robert Lax?
Steve Georgiou: Robert Lax was an important American minimalist poet who, even though he's been talked about in the same breath as T. S. Elliott and Denise Levertov, preferred anonymity. Around 1955, after a series of odd jobs from circus performer to screenwriter, he decided to hang it up and live as a hermit and poet on Patmos, the Greek island associated with St. John.

He was a beautiful soul. People called him a saint because he was so kind and encouraging. He was a mentor to Jack Kerouac and Thomas Merton's best friend. Merton called him his "spiritual superior." Merton always felt that Lax had it right; he said Lax had "an inborn direction to the living God."

How did you meet him?
It was by chance in 1993. I had experienced a recent series of incidents that were devastating. I remember a monk telling me that if I ever wanted to go on a spiritual retreat I could come to Patmos.

Upon arriving, I was sitting by the dock, to some degree lamenting my condition. A man approached me. He asked me about my background and learned that I was involved in humanities. He said I should see this old man in the hills whose name was Robert Lax, but he called him "Pax," which of course, means "peace" in Latin. I had come to Patmos to find peace. He said, "Just go up there right now, and knock on his door." It was about 10:00 at night so I said, "He doesn't know me from a hill of beans, how can I go up to his house and knock on his door?" And he said, "Go up there right now. It's okay."

I knocked. At first nothing happened and I started walking away. Then his voice called me back. I said I was just a guy who came to talk to him. As soon as he opened the door, it was a powerful feeling. I went back for more meetings and later we wrote, too.

Just being in his company, I felt a strong vibration. He made you feel good and because you felt good, you wanted to do good. Even the ordinary things, like going to the store, became wonderful with him.

I love his statement: "All that is really necessary to be a saint is to want to be one."
He said this when Merton and Lax were walking together. Merton was wrestling with the idea about being involved in the world of spirituality in a very structured way. Then Lax just looked at him and said, "Why are you making it so hard? It shouldn't be so hard. Just relax and try and be the saint that you already are." It was like Jesus saying the kingdom is already within us, or the Buddha saying we already have Buddha nature, but there's too much stuff on our inward mirror so we can't really see our true reflection.

Lax also says we are intercessory beings for each other.
We're all part of the same light, whether we know it or not. If we all came from the same source, then we're all beings in and through whom love is always flowing. Once we get awakened to that love, then we start to feel it in others. Ultimately, love is the only possible response.