Poet Robert Lax spent much of his adult life on the Greek island of Patmos — but he had a special place in his heart for Bonaventure.
Lax, an Olean native “spent many happy days among the people of St. Bonaventure,” said Michael N. McGregor, spring 2017’s Lenna Endowed Visiting Professor.”
McGregor, a professor of English and creative writing at Portland State University, recently wrote a biography of Lax titled, “Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax.”
McGregor has a personal connection to Lax, too; the two were close friends, as they were both American writers living in Greece in 1985.
McGregor discovered Lax while reading Thomas Merton’s autobiography, “Seven Storey Mountain.”
“I found myself not drawn just to the young spiritual writer, but even more to the writer’s best friend,” McGregor said, referring to Lax.
In the book, Merton describes a conversation he has with Lax in which Lax tells his friend that he should aspire to sainthood.
“Don’t you believe God will make you what you were created to be if you consent to it?” Lax reportedly asked. “All you have to do is desire it.”
To McGregor, a young writer at the time of his reading “Seven Storey Mountain,” it seemed Lax was speaking directly to him.
“What I heard Lax saying to me was that I should trust my desires,” he said.
The two struck up a friendship, and, as McGregor put it, something of a mentorship.
McGregor said Lax lived by the first Beatitude, delivered by Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
In his earlier career, Lax started out as a poet, published 13 times in “The New Yorker.” However, he suffered a crisis of conscience, moved to Harlem and began helping the poor. From there, he traveled with a circus and eventually moved to Greece, settling in Patmos, the island on which John the Evangelist wrote The Book of Revelations.
McGregor said that Lax spent his days simply: reading all morning, writing in his journal in the afternoon and in his in-between hours walking and talking to everyone he met on the road.
His poetry mirrored his way of life: simplicity was key.
“[He had a] simple, vertical style of one or two words per line,” McGregor said.
Lax’s religious life was of paramount importance to him — as evinced by the title of McGregor’s book. “Pure Act” refers to Thomas Aquinas’ theory of Actus Purus, which refers to the absolute perfection and reality of God.
“Seeking God and seeking his own true self were essentially the same,” McGregor said, quoting from his book. “To say what he really thought, to know what he really thought, he had to spend more time in prayer and contemplation.”
However, McGregor made it clear that Lax wasn’t always so serious. In fact, “He was a delightful person to be around. He was a great joker and he liked to laugh.”
mcelfrdh14@bonaventure.edu
