I was coming down Seventh Avenue one morning. It must have been in December or January. I had just come from the little church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and from Communion, and was going to get some breakfast at a lunch wagon near Loew's Sheridan Theater. I don't know what I was thinking of, but as I walked along I nearly bumped into Mark who was on his way to the subway, going to Columbia for his morning classes.

"Where are you going?" he said. The question surprised me, as there did not seem to be any reason to ask where I was going, and all I could answer was: "To breakfast."

Later on, Mark referred again to the meeting and said:

"What made you look so happy, on the street, there?"

So that was what had impressed him, and that was why he had asked me where I was going. It was not where I was going that made me happy, but where I was coming from. Yet, as I say, this surprised me too, because I had not really paid attention to the fact that I was happy -- which indeed I was.

Thomas Merton The Seven Storey Mountain