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Has anyone read Thomas Merton? (Original Post) milestogo Oct 15 OP
"No Man is an Island" is quite good Docreed2003 Oct 15 #1
A man ahead of his time TommyT139 Oct 15 #2
Thanks. I will start with his autobiography. milestogo Oct 15 #5
Recommended notemason Oct 15 #3
Thank you. milestogo Oct 15 #4
Been reading him for 30 years Dawgman49 Oct 15 #6

Docreed2003

(17,682 posts)
1. "No Man is an Island" is quite good
Tue Oct 15, 2024, 10:50 AM
Oct 15

"Seeds of Contemplation" and "Thoughts in Solitude" are also very good but "No Man is an Island" is my favorite.

"Seven Storey Mountain" is his autobiography and it's great, but would recommend reading his other works first

TommyT139

(670 posts)
2. A man ahead of his time
Tue Oct 15, 2024, 10:59 AM
Oct 15

My first thought to suggest was The Seven Storey Mountain. It's the very readable autobiography of the part of his life when he went from being a college student to a monk at the Trappist monastery where he spent nearly the rest of his life. That and New Seeds of Contemplation will get you a good start. They seem to be numbers one and two-or-three on the lists written by people who've read far more than me.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlmccolman/2015/01/seven-essential-thomas-merton-books/

This page has selections from the books (like Google or Amazon samples), but it wouldn't load on my phone properly.
https://englewoodreview.org/thomas-merton-intro-reading-guide/

Edited to add one last link, to Merton's famous prayer (from Thoughts in Solitude), in both text and audio:
https://onbeing.org/blog/thomas-mertons-prayer-that-anyone-can-pray/

milestogo

(17,406 posts)
4. Thank you.
Tue Oct 15, 2024, 11:31 AM
Oct 15

I've been listening to a book on audible called JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. The author makes mention of Thomas Merton, who was a pacifist, and his answer to "why" Kennedy was marked for assassination- because he chose peace over war. Kennedy resisted using nuclear weapons, and he was planning to draw down all the troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963.

At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy's change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence. Once these dark "Unspeakable" forces recognized that Kennedy's interests were in direct opposition to their own, they tagged him as a dangerous traitor, plotted his assassination, and orchestrated the subsequent cover-up.

Douglass takes listeners into the Oval Office during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, along on the strange journey of Lee Harvey Oswald and his shadowy handlers, and to the winding road in Dallas where an ambush awaited the president's motorcade. As Douglass convincingly documents, at every step along the way, these forces of the Unspeakable were present, moving people like pawns on a chessboard to promote a dangerous and deadly agenda.


It made me want to learn more about Merton. I think I will start with the Seven Storey Mountain and keep going.

Dawgman49

(251 posts)
6. Been reading him for 30 years
Tue Oct 15, 2024, 11:43 AM
Oct 15

John Lewis had a copy of his seeds of contemplation in has back pack when he crossed the Edmund Pettit bridge. Would also recommend “a year with Thomas Merton.. daily meditations from his journals..

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