Biography merton personal tomorrow

Christian Mantras?

I’m going to be a bit critical of Merton’s interest in and writings on Asian philosophy and tro, not because I don’t admire his brilliance, but because his commitment to orthodox Catholicism appears suspiciously attenuated bygd the end of his life. In the book Recollections of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West, Benedictine monk Br. David Steindl-Rast wrote that Thomas said that he wanted &#;to become as good a Buddhist as I can.&#; When he flew out of San Francisco for Asia on October 15, , he left with the expectation of religious discovery, as if his monastic life at the Abbey of Gethsemani was a spiritual precursor to the insights he would gain in the East. He wrote in his journal:

Joy. We left the ground—I with Christian mantras and a great sense of destiny, of being at gods on my true way after years of waiting and wondering and fooling around. . . . May inom not komma back without having settled the great affair. And fou

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One of the benefits of being retired is having more time to read the books I want to read.  One I recently completed is called Earth, Our Original Monastery by Christine Valters Paintner.  The subtitle of the book is “Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude Through Intimacy With Nature.”  In this delightful book Paintner speaks of Earth as the original cathedral, the original Scriptures, the original saints, the original spiritual directors, the original icon, the original sacrament, and the original liturgy.  I learned something from her chapters on each of these, but was particularly intrigued by her discussion of Earth as the original spiritual directors.

I have never had what most would technically consider a “spiritual director.”  Needless to say I have had many influence my spiritual journey but I never pursued a personal spiritual director to help me out.  I suspect I would have benefited had I done so.  But Paintner argues that not all spiritual directors are human.  The Earth—p

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Introduction.

According to Thomas Merton himself and to his biographers, he wrote stories, plays and autobiographical material from an early age. In The Seven Storey Mountain Merton, already an avid reader, tells how he and his friends at the Lycee Ingres, in Montauban in , when Merton was only eleven, "were all furiously writing novels" and that he was "engaged in a great adventure story, the scene of which was laid in India, and the style of which was somewhat influenced by Pierre Loti." (1)

Although that particular story "was never finished" he recalls that he "finished at least one other, and probably two, besides one which I wrote at St. Antonin before coming to the Lycee." These novels "scribbled in exercise books, profusely illustrated in pen and ink" may sound like the poetic licence of the budding author writing in later years but, recently discovered manuscripts dating back to confirm Merton's description here.

The Quest.

In John Howard Griffin's widow, Elizabeth Griffi