Scribbled in a Notebook

2700

Good Morning,

Long story for some other time --- but 25 years ago, during a visit to the beautiful hills of Kentucky,  I came into contact with the life and legacy of  the Cistercian (Trappist) Monk Thomas Merton.

My dear friend William Sladcik and I, on one of  our pilgrimages, had a wonderful day at The Abbey of Gethsemani --- Merton's home.

I'd like to share a couple of lines, written by Sister Elena Malits, C.S.C   -- from a book titled:

The Solitary Explorer --Thomas Merton's Transforming Journey. (Written in 1980 -- Sister chaired the Religious Studies Department of St. Mary's 

College, Notre Dame, Indiana).

"Theologians of the 1950's may not have been impressed, but Merton's kind of theology deeply affected many people. His ideas were mulled over, meditated on, and approached with utmost seriousness.

His words came alive to these people because he spoke to them 'not in the language of speculation, in terms of personal experience.' Merton himself recognized the hazards of such an approach, but he was convinced of its necessity. In his journal covering the years 1946-1952, he noted,

'I found in writing The Ascent of Truth that the technical language, though it is universal and certain and accepted by theologians, DOES NOT REACH THE AVERAGE MAN and does not convey what is most personal and vital in religious experience. Since my focus is not upon dogmas as such, but only on their repercussions in the life of the soul in which they begin to find a concrete realization, I may be pardoned for using my own words to talk about my own soul.'

     And it was exactly Thomas Merton's 'own words' about his 'own soul' that interested people. Arresting as his ideas might be, it was ever the man himself who attracted attention. ..... Indeed a VAST public seemed fascinated by the random thoughts of Thomas Merton scribbled in his notebook behind some barn at Gethsemani."

xxxx

To me, Merton's whole life was a TRANSFORMING 

JOURNEY--- a Journey that all of us are experiencing------ see you down the trail!

Peace,

Grandpazach