Thomas Merton was ean interesting person. I love to read his work and think about what he had to say. Despite the fact he died in 1969, I find his thinking more timely today than it was when he wrote. The concept he discussed about the violence we do to ourselves in life through busyness and being now gets coverage, but it might have seemed out of place in his time. He was visionary and before his times. At the same time, he lived such a simple and traditional life. He lived the fullest paradox of life.
I was up early this morning – too early. I was awakened by one of my “vocation dreams” where I imagine doing something new and different in my life and then wake myself up analyzing if it is possible.
Today, there was no going back to sleep, so I decided to look for a decent documentary on Netflix. It took some searching, but I found one called Merton: A Film Biography.
Thomas Merton was many things in his life. A little French boy of artistic parents, orphaned by age 15. A bright, yet carousing student at Cambridge, then Columbia. A Roman Catholic convert, received into the Cistercian order at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky. A hard-working Trappist monk devoted to the contemplative life of prayer. A poet and philosopher who sought to bring healing to a desperately wounded society. A hermit who found in Buddhist writings and friendships companionship…
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Teacher as Transformer 