Journals of Thomas Merton
7 primary works • 8 total works
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
The third volume of Merton's journals chronicles his struggle of reconcile his new celebrity with his desire for a life of silence and contemplation.
Already a bestselling author and celebrity, the Merton of this volume writes candidly of his yearning for silence and contemplation, of conflicts with monastic routine, and his exploration of Zen, existentialism, Marxism, and Latin American Culture.
Merton's private writing combines a poet's eye for the beauty of nature - in the woods and fields of the Abbey - as well as a fiction writer's instinct for the idiosyncracies of his brethren, the rhythms and tediums of regular observance, the strengths of the monastery and its weaknesses.
Here in their original form are the reflections and observations that lie at the heart of his classic works such as Thoughts in Solitude (1958), Wisdom of the Desert (1960), and Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966).
Book 4
This is the fourth volume of Thomas Merton's complete journals. It is one of his final literary legacies and springs from three hundred handwritten pages that capture the growing unrest of the 1960's and Merton's search for peace amidst shifting values.
In these decisive years, 1960-1963, Merton, now in his late forties and frequently working in a new hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, finds himself struggling between his longing for a private, spiritual life and the irresistible pull of social concerns.
Precisely when he longs for more solitude, and convinces himself he should cut back on his writing, Merton begins asking complex questions about contemporary culture ("the `world' with its funny pants, of which I do not know the name, its sandals and sunglasses"), war, and the Church's role in society .
Thus, despite his resistance, he is drawn into the world where his celebrity and growing concern for social issues fuel his writings on civil rights, nonviolence, and pacifism and lead him into conflict with those who urge him to leave moral issues to bishops and theologians.
Book 5
The fifth volume of the acclaimed Journals of Thomas Merton documents the most turbulent period of the sixties and concludes with Merton's momentous move to his own hermitage.
The sixties were a time of restlessness, inner turmoil, and exuberance for Merton during which he closely followed the careening development of politifcal and social activism - Martin Luther King, Jr., and hte March on Selma, the Catholic Worker Movement, the Vietnam war, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Volume 5 chronicles the approach of Merton's fiftieth birthday and marks his move to Mount Olivet, his hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where he was finally able to fully embrace the joys and challenges of solitary life: `In the hermitage, one must pray of go to seed. The pretense of prayer will not suffice. Just sitting will not suffice...Solitude puts you with your back to the wall (or your face to it!), and this is good' (13 October, 1964).
Book 6
The sixth volume of Thomas Merton's acclaimed journals is the most revealing and compulsively readable yet as the unpredictable cloistered Merton falls head over heels in love with a beautiful young nurse.
Having embraced a life of solitude in his own hermitage, Thomas Merton finds his faith tested beyond his imagination when a visit to the hospital leads to a clandestine affair of the heart. Jolted out of his comfortable routine, Merton is forced to reassess his need for love and his commitment to celibacy and the monastic vocation.
This astonishing volume traces Merton's struggle to reconcile his unexpected love with his sacred vows while continuing to grapple with the burning social issues of the day - including racial conflicts, the war in Vietnam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict - visiting and corresponding with high-profile friends like Thich Nhat Hanh and Joan Baez, and further developing his writing career. Revealing Merton to be `very human' in his chronicles of the ecstasy and torment of being in love, Learning to Love comes full circle as Merton recommits himself completely and more deeply to his vocation even as he recognizes `my need for love, my loneliness, my inner division, the struggle in which solitude is at once a problem and a `solution'. And perhaps not a perfect solution either' (11 May, 1967).
Book 7
The year 1998 marks the 30th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death, and this seventh and final volume of his celebrated journals completes the story of a remarkable man and his lifelong search for spiritual fulfilment.
With the election of a new Abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton enters a period of unprecedented freedom, culminating in the opportunity to travel to California, Alaska, and finally the Far East - journeys that offer him new possibilities and causes for contemplation. In his last days at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events of the sixties, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. In Southeast Asia, he meets the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist and Catholic monks and discovers a rare and rewarding kinship with each. The final year is full of excitement and great potential for Merton, making his accidental death in Bangkok, at the age of fifty-three, all the more tragic.
v. 6
