Thomas merton brief biography of siren

Merton was fortunate in that his abbot recognized his extraordinary talent for writing. When it was published inthe book became an unlikely best-seller and today is considered one of the spiritual classics of the modern age. In the latter decades of his life he became increasingly interested in Asian religions, particularly Buddhism. His leadership helped spark Christian-Buddhist dialogue that continues to this day.

Thomas merton brief biography of siren

Merton died in of an accidental electrocution while attending an interfaith conference of contemplative monks in Thailand. He was 53 years old. Since then, his works have been translated into more than 30 languages. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from the inner depth.

Cunningham, writing in Commonweal, Merton viewed the contemplative as someone who "should be able to communicate. Along with social activism, Merton became increasingly interested in the study of other religions, particularly Zen Buddhism. Later he abandoned this attempt and accepted Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam on their own equally valid terms.

Merton's writings on peace, war, social injustice, and Eastern thought created controversy both inside and outside the abbey. In the revised edition of Thomas Merton: Monk, Daniel Berrigan noted that many people refused to accept the work of the "new" Merton and that they preferred "rather a Merton in their own image, a Merton who [was] safe, and cornered, contemplative in a terribly wrong sense, and therefore manageable.

Cameron remarked in the New York Review of Books, it is most likely these later writings will stand out as Merton's most important work. Merton died in Hoping to expand his understanding of Eastern thought, he attended an ecumenical conference in Bangkok, Thailand, his first extended journey outside the monastery walls since his entry in His death came twenty-seven years to the day from when he first became a member of the Gethsemani community, and was the result of an electrical shock from a faulty fan.

According to Cameron, "Merton will be remembered for two things: his place. Daggy was quoted by Carl Simmons in AB Bookman's Weekly as attributing Merton's continuing popularity to the "great deal of interest in Merton as a human being, sort of struggling through the 20th century, struggling through a period where traditions and roots seem to be lost, where people don't know quite what they believe or what they believe in.

Merton was, as Shannon noted, "one of those persons people instinctively like[d]" and his charisma was still felt decades after his death as his works and life found relevance among a new generation of Catholics and non-Catholics. Catholic bishops' statement on nuclear war published in the s. His life, too, continues to reveal, Monica Furlong noted in Merton: A Biography, "much about the twentieth century and, in particular, the role of religion in it.

Decades after his passing, interest in Merton has not faded; due to reprints of his written work, the author "has been prolific even in death," according to U. Catholic reporter Jim Forest. The fiftieth-anniversary edition of The Seven Storey Mountain was published inprompting Forest to recall that the memoir has "sold millions of copies, been translated into many languages, and never gone out of print.

The first time Forest read Merton's book, "I overlooked his sense of humor. The second time I noticed how funny he was but was put off by the 'Catholics are best' pages and by his occasional outbursts of preaching. Three or four readings later, I finally came to see the book as mainly belonging in the category of love letters. Garvey deemed the work "a great adventure story, a book that comes roaring at you and beating its chest.

The Seven Storey Mountain is a treasure to the church. Between and a series of autobiographical writings were published as the seven-volume Journals of Thomas Merton. Volume six, Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom caused a small stir when the journal revealed what Merton himself labeled an "affair" he had with a young nurse in The woman, identified only as "M," was the object of Merton's deep passion: "I have never seen so much simple, spontaneous, total love," he wrote.

Among the many works by Merton reissued in new formats during the late s and early s is Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings, which Library Journal 's Graham Christian applauded as casting "new and thought-provoking light on his finely written prayers. A contributor for Publishers Weekly likewise praised the "many passages [that] offer vivid examples of Merton's ability to make monastic disciplines intelligible and plausible even to thomas merton brief biography of siren readers.

Merton was "something of a Rebel," as implied in the title of a biography of the spiritual writer by William Shannon. Shannon described his subject as "a unique monk," adding: "One would have to go all the way back to the [twelfth] century—to St. Bernard—to find a monk whose writings were as influential as Merton's have been. He was supracultural, yet not ahistorical.

By that I mean he was alive to the historical circumstances in which he lived, yet not so hemmed in by cultural restraints that he could not break through them. Like Shannon, several authors have published biographical volumes about the monk over the years. But "perhaps the best indicator of the continuing interest in Thomas Merton," wrote Simmons, "besides the dozens of posthumously published works, is the existence of several centers specifically dedicated to the study of Merton, in New York, Pittsburgh, Denver, and Magog, Quebec.

The Merton Legacy Trust, devoted to gathering all future Merton scholarship, is also located at Bellarmine. The International Thomas Merton Society was founded in and reports a membership of over 1, individuals. Interest in Merton has not receded over the years; indeed, every new posthumous publication attests to the immortality of this Trappist monk with a passion for worldly commitment and a love of writing.

AugustineThe Confessions, written in Higgins, Michael W. McInerny, Dennis Q. Pennington, M. America, October 25, ; November 24, ; October 22,pp. Hauser, review of The Inner Experience, p. Booklist, May 1,p. Christian Century, March 9,p. Commonweal, June 22,pp. Garvey, review of The Seven Storey Mountain, p. Cross Currents, spring,George Kilcourse, Jr.

National Catholic Reporter, January 29,p. Catholic, January,p. Wall Street Journal, June 4,p. World Literature Today, spring,p. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list.

Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Thomas MertonRoman Catholic writer, was a Trappist monk, social critic, and spiritual guide. His parents, aspiring artists, had met at art school in Paris in and married in They seldom were able to earn their living by painting his mother became an interior decorator and his father worked as a gardener and farmerbut art dominated their lives.

There they were received by Ruth's parents in Queens, New Yorkbut soon struck out on their own, trying to live by farming, journalism, and music for a time Owen was a church organist. A second son, John Paul, was born on November 2, The profile of the Merton family at this time was one of rather poor, impractical idealists, dedicated to art and peace but not notably religious.

Ruth Merton contracted stomach cancer and died inwhen Thomas was six. Merton's early schooling was erratic, because his father frequently withdrew the boy to have him alongside during his travels to Cape Cod and Bermuda, among other places to paint. Merton's father took a lover, the writer Evelyn Scott, who became young Tom's rival for his father's affections.

The father's poverty, and the growing wildness of the son, led in to Tom's return to New York and the supervision of his grandparents. Owen Merton travelled to the south of France and Algeria, made a success of his painting with a London exhibit, and took Tom as he was known in the family back to the south of France with him in Antonin, a rather medieval town.

Tom attended a local French Catholic school, was subject to much bullying, and experienced during a reunion with his grandparents and brother in that bitterness that had become the norm in his family's relationships. He thought of his brother as a rival, and his grandparents, who had never approved of his father, were vocal in their prejudices against the Catholic schooling he was receiving.

In he was diagnosed as having contracted tuberculosis and was placed with a couple in Auvergne to rest and recuperate. In Owen Merton had another successful art thomas merton brief biography of siren in London and, on the advice of friends, moved Tom there for schooling. Owen had been sick periodically, and in he died, unaware that the paintings he had stored in France, on which he had rested his hopes of acquiring an artistic reputation, had been destroyed by flood.

So at age 16 Thomas Merton was a full orphan. He had been taken in three years previously by an aunt and uncle in London who were connected to the British public school system, and he was sent to Oakham public school. In his grandfather presented him with a measure of financial independence stocks and land. London and sophistication became his enthusiasms, although at the end of he spent a brief time in Strasbourg for language studies.

He did well at Oakham, becoming editor of the literary magazine, majoring in languages, and considering a future career in the British diplomatic corps. Having won a scholarship to Cambridge, Merton finished his schoolboy career reading widely, travelling to Europe and America, and thinking romantic thoughts about poetry and young women.

He also became more interested in religion, a subject he had previously approached with hostility. At Cambridge, however, he was so lured by alcohol and women there were persistent rumors he had fathered at least one illegitimate child that he neglected his studies and at the end of the first year did not do well enough in his examinations to renew his scholarship.

On the advice—if not command—of his grandparents he returned to the United States and enrolled at Columbia University. By the chief question in Merton's life was the existence of God. This dominated his years at Columbia, where he was a great success. However, at first he was more interested in writing and politics than in formal religion.

In politics he felt drawn to socialist and communist political theory more than their practice. He made good friends with a literary circle, was impressed by the English professor Mark Van Doren, and became editor of the Columbia Year-book. After graduation he stayed on for a master's degree in English literature becoming much interested in William Blakeand in he was received into the Roman Catholic Churchculminating months of study of Catholic writers.

Among these the philosopher Jacques Maritain was especially influential. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, near Bangkok, on December 10, The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his arrival at Gethsemani. Patrick Hart, Merton's last secretary, and Thomas Merton. Photo by Philip Stark.

Dies on December 10, — the 27th anniversary of his arrival at Gethsemani. Photo by Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Copyright the Meatyard Estate. Photo of Thomas Merton by John Lyons. Retrieved May 7, Cistercian Studies. The Wounded Heart of Thomas Merton. Paulist Press. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton. New Directions. August 6, Archived from the original on December 14, On Merton.

Shambhala Publications. Archived from the original on August 8, Retrieved February 9, USA Today. December 23, Archived from the original on January 27, Retrieved December 16, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ISBN X. LCCN A New Charter For Monasticism. Archived from the original on July 9, December 12, Archived from the original on December 12, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church.

July 9, Archived from the original on March 27, Retrieved December 3, Irish Times. Catholic Historical Review. Catholic University of America Press. Archived from the original on February 27, Ishi Means Man. Unicorn Press. Archived from the original on September 26, Retrieved September 25, Religion and American Culture. University of California Press: 77— S2CID Retrieved July 7, Memory and History.

Catholic University of America Press: 47— The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 1, Retrieved February 20, National Catholic Reporter. November 11, Archived from the original on October 24, Retrieved June 2, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on August 12, The Courier-Journal. Columbia University. Archived from the original on June 12, Retrieved July 6, Archived from the original on May 11, Archived PDF from the original on July 9, OCLC The Vatican.

September 24, Archived from the original on September 25, Retrieved September 24, Columbia Daily Spectator. Archived from the original on April 1, Retrieved April 1, February 16, Archived from the original on November 16, Retrieved April 4, Chicago Reader. Retrieved June 12, April 6, Archived from the original on November 7, Retrieved November 7, Further reading [ edit ].

Boulder, CO. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.