New Releases by Thomas Merton

When Thomas Merton died accidentally in Bangkok in 1968, the beloved Trappist monk''s will specified that his personal diaries not be published for 25 years -- presumably because they contained his uncensored thoughts and feelings. Now, a quarter of a century has passed since Merton''s death, and the journals are the last major piece of writing to appear by the 20th century''s most important spiritual writer. The first of seven volumes, Run to the Mountain offers an intimate glimpse at the inner life of a young, pre-monastic Merton. Here readers will witness the insatiably curious graduate student in New York''s Greenwich Village give way to the tentative spiritual seeker and brilliant writer. Merton playfully lists everything from his favorite lines of poetry and songs to the things he most loves and hates. Thomas Merton was an inveterate diarist; his journals offer a complete and candid look at the rich transformations of his adult life. As Brother Patrick Hart, general editor of the series notes, "Perhaps his best writing can be found in the journals, where he was expressing what was deepest in his heart with no thought of censorship. With their publication we will have as complete a picture of Thomas Merton as we can hope to have."

"Inexorably life moves on towards crisis and mystery. Everyone must struggle to adjust himself to this, to face the situation for ''now is the judgment of the world.'' In a way, each one judges himself merely by what he does. Does, not says. Yet let us not completely dismiss words. They do have meaning. They are related to action. They spring from action and they prepare for it, they clarify it, they direct it." --Thomas Merton, August 16, 1961 The fourth volume of Thomas Merton''s complete journals, one of his final literary legacies, springs from three hundred handwritten pages that capture - in candid, lively, deeply revealing passages - the growing unrest of the 1960s, which Merton witnessed within himself as plainly as in the changing culture around him. In these decisive years, 1960-1963, Merton, now in his late forties and frequently working in a new hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, finds himself struggling between his longing for a private, spiritual life and the irresistible pull of social concerns. Precisely when he longs for more solitude, and convinces himself he could not cut back on his writing, Merton begins asking complex questions about the contemporary culture ("the ''world'' with its funny pants, of which I do not know the name, its sandals and sunglasses"), war, and the churches role in society. Thus despite his resistance, he is drawn into the world where his celebrity and growing concerns for social issues fuel his writings on civil rights, nonviolence, and pacifism and lead him into conflict with those who urge him to leave the moral issues to bishops and theologians. This pivotal volume in the Merton journals reveals a man at the height of a brilliant writing career, marking the fourteenth anniversary of his priesthood but yearning still for the key to true happiness and grace. Here, in his most private diaries, Merton is as intellectually curious, critical, and insightful as in his best-known public writings while he documents his movement from the cloister toward the world, from Novice Master to hermit, from ironic critic to joyous witness to the mystery of God''s plan.

An intensely personal devotional book from Thomas Merton, the ultimate spiritual writer of our time, showing his contemplative and religious side through his prayers and rarely-seen drawings. The only Merton gift book available. Dialogues with Silence contains a selection of prayers from throughout Merton''s life--from his journals, letters, poetry, books--accompanied by all 100 of Merton''s rarely seen, delightful Zen-like pen-and-ink drawings, and will attract new readers as well as Merton devotees. There is no other Merton devotional like this, and the paperback edition will be elegantly designed and packaged.

In this diary-like memoir, composed of his most poignant and insightful journal entries, The Intimate Merton lays bare the steep ways of Thomas Merton''s spiritual path. Culled from the seven volumes of his personal journals, this twenty nine year chronicle deepens and extends the story Thomas Merton recounted and made famous in The Seven Storey Mountain. This book is the spiritual autobiography of our century''s most celebrated monk -- the wisdom gained from the personal experience of an enduring spiritual teacher. Here is Merton''s account of his life''s major challenges, his confrontations with monastic and church hierarchies, his interaction with religious traditions east and west, and his antiwar and civil-rights activities. In The Intimate Merton we engage a writer''s art of "confession and witness" as he searches for a contemporary, authentic, and global spirituality. Recounting Merton''s earliest days in the monastery to his journey east to meet the Dalai Lama, The Intimate Merton captures the essence of what makes Thomas Merton''s life journey so perennially relevant.

The second volume of Thomas Merton''s "gusty, passionate journals" (Thomas Moore) chronicles Merton''s advancements to priesthood and emergence as a bestselling author with the surprise success of his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Spanning an eleven-year period, Entering the Silence reflects Merton''s struggle to balance his vocation to solitude with the budding literary career that would soon established him as one of the most important spiritual writers of our century.

The sixties were a time of restlessness, inner turmoil, and exuberance for Merton during which he closely followed the careening development of political and social activism – Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Selma, the Catholic Worker Movement, the Vietnam war, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Volume 5 chronicles the approach of Merton’s fiftieth birthday and marks his move to Mount Olivet, his hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where he was finally able to fully embrace the joys and challenges of solitary life: ‘In the hermitage, one must pray of go to seed. The pretense of prayer will not suffice. Just sitting will not suffice . . . Solitude puts you with your back to the wall (or your face to it!), and this is good’ (13 October, 1964).

In these conferences dating to 1961, Thomas Merton provides for his audience of young monks an overview of major themes and figures in the Christian mystical tradition as an integral part of their religious inheritance and a crucial part of their spiritual formation. From Fathers of the Church such as St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nyssa, through such important medieval theologians as St Bonaventure, Hadewijch and Meister Eckhart, to the great Spanish Carmelites St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, Merton traces such key topics as the integration of theology and spirituality; the importance of "natural contemplation"--recognizing the divine presence in creation; the centrality of apophatic or "dark" contemplation; and the role of spiritual direction in forming mature and balanced contemplatives.

One of the best-loved books by one of the great spiritual authors of our time, with a new introduction by best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd. New Seeds of Contemplation is one of Thomas Merton''s most widely read and best-loved books. Christians and non-Christians alike have joined in praising it as a notable successor in the meditative tradition of St. John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the medieval mystics, while others have compared Merton''s reflections with those of Thoreau. New Seeds of Contemplation seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man, to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our lives. For Merton, "Every moment and every event of every man''s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."

Reprint. Originally published: New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, c1979.

Thomas Merton was the most popular proponent of the Christian contemplative tradition in the twentieth century. Now, for the first time, some of his most lyrical and prayerful writings have been arranged into A Book of Hours, a rich resource for daily prayer and contemplation that imitates the increasingly popular ancient monastic practice of "praying the hours." Editor Kathleen Deignan mined Merton''s voluminous writings, arranging prayers for Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark for each of the days of the week. A Book of Hours allows for a slice of monastic contemplation in the midst of hectic modern life, with psalms, prayers, readings, and reflections.

When Thomas Merton entered a Trappist monastery in December 1941, he turned his back on secular life—including a very promising literary career. He sent his journals, a novel-in-progess, and copies of all his poems to his mentor, Columbia professor Mark Van Doren, for safe keeping, fully expecting to write little, if anything, ever again. It was a relatively short-lived resolution, for Merton almost immediately found himself being assigned writing tasks by his Abbot—one of which was the autobiographical essay that blossomed into his international best-seller The Seven Storey Mountain. That book made him famous overnight, and for a time he struggled with the notion that the vocation of the monk and the vocation of the writer were incompatible. Monasticism called for complete surrender to the absolute, whereas writing demanded a tactical withdrawal from experience in order to record it. He eventually came to accept his dual vocation as two sides of the same spiritual coin and used it as a source of creative tension the rest of his life. Merton’s thoughts on writing have never been compiled into a single volume until now. Robert Inchausti has mined the vast Merton literature to discover what he had to say on a whole spectrum of literary topics, including writing as a spiritual calling, the role of the Christian writer in a secular society, the joys and mysteries of poetry, and evaluations of his own literary work. Also included are fascinating glimpses of his take on a range of other writers, including Henry David Thoreau, Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Albert Camus, James Joyce, and even Henry Miller, along with many others.

This volume is a stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to find the meaning of human existence and to live the richest, fullest and noblest life. --Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher: A new view of the innovative poetry by the late, great Trappist monk and religious philosopher.

Writing at the height of the Cold War, Merton issued this passionate challenge to the idea that unthinkable violence can be squared with the Gospel of Christ. Censors of Merton''s order blocked publication of "Peace in the Post-Christian Era," but 40 years later, the message remains eerily topical.

First published in 2003 and now available in paperback to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Thomas Merton''s birth, When the Trees Say Nothing has sold more than 60,000 copies and continually inspires readers with its unique collection of Merton''s luminous writings on nature, arranged for reflection and meditation. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, author, poet, social commentator, and perhaps the most influential and widely published spiritual writer of the twentieth century. In When the Trees Say Nothing, editor Kathleen Deignan sheds new light on Merton by focusing on a neglected theme of his writing: the natural world as a manifestation of the divine. Drawing from Merton''s voluminous writing on nature, Deignan has thematically assembled a collection of lucid, poetic reflections. Chapters on the four elements, the seasons, the Earth and its creatures, and the sun, moon, and stars provide brief passages from his diverse works that reveal the presence of God in creation.

This diary of a monastic life is “a continuation of The Seven Storey Mountain . . . Astonishing” (Commonweal). Chronicling six years of Thomas Merton’s life in a Trappist monastery, The Sign of Jonas takes us through his day-to-day experiences at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, where he lived in silence and prayer for much of his life. Concluding with the account of Merton’s ordination as a priest, this diary documents his growing acceptance of his vocation—and the greater meaning he found within his private world of contemplation. “This book is made unmistakably real and almost, at times, unbearably poignant by the fact that the exuberance of youth so often wells up through it with rapture, impatience, and even bluster.” —TheNew York Times “A stirring book—the most readable and on the whole, most illuminating of the author’s writings.” —Catholic World

Full of learning, human insight, and self-deprecating wit, these letters capture the excitement of the Catholic Church in the era of the Second Vatican Council - and the perennial appeal of the life of monastic solitude."--BOOK JACKET.

Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the ''way'' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."

The Eastern religious traditions, especially the varieties of Buddhism, were the last great passion in Thomas Merton''s life. His participation in a monastic conference in Asia led to his premature, accidental death. He discoursed on equal terms with the Dalai Lama, and extracts from their interviews appear in this book. The introduction brings together extracts from Merton''s "Asian Journal" (Hinduism and varieties of Buddhism), and other short works on Eastern religions written in the last few years of his life. They all combine to demonstrate the breadth of vision that is such an integral part of Merton''s lasting appeal, his quest for a deeper unity underlying apparent fragmentation. They might be regarded as steps toward the great book on monasticism that Merton might have written but never did. As they stand, they provide Merton''s essential definitions of the religions that so interested him in the last years of his life, and of which he became a skilful Western interpreter.

"Last night I had a curious dream about Kanchenjunga. I was looking at the mountain and it was pure white, absolutely pure, especially the peaks that lie to the west. And I saw the pure beauty of their shape and outline, all in white. And I heard a voice saying-or got the clear idea of: ''There is another side to the mountain.''. . . This morning my quarrel with the mountain is ended . . . why get mad at a mountain? It is beautiful, chastely white in the morning sun-and right in view of the bungalow window."There is another side of Kanchenjunga and of every mountain-the side that has never been photographed and turned into postcards. That is the only side worth seeing" (November 19, 1968). The seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton''s journals finds him exploring new territory, both spiritual and geographic, in the last great journey prior to his untimely death. Traveling in the United States and the Far East, Merton enjoys a new freedom that brings with it a rich mix of solitude, spirited friendship, and interaction with monks of other traditions. In his last days in the United States, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events closing the 1960s, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, with the blessing of his new abbot, Merton travels to monasteries in New Mexico and among the redwoods of Northern California, keeping his journal all the while. In these travels, as well as on a later trip to Alaska, he gains a better understanding of his eremitical yearnings and begins to see a way to reconcile his conflicting desires for solitude and fellowship. When Merton wins approval to participate in a meeting of monastic superiors of the Far East in Bangkok, Thailand, his life enters its most thrilling period. Arriving in Calcutta, Merton is heartbroken by the poverty of the many beggars; in New Delhi and Dharamsala, he makes contact with local Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama. Recognizing each other as kindred spirits, Merton and the Dalai Lama speak from the heart like old friends. In Bangkok at the beginning of December 1968, awaiting the beginning of the conference, Merton pens a letter home: "I think of you all on this Feast Day and with Christmas approaching I feel homesick for Gethsemani." Tragically, Christmas Day finds Merton back home after all. Electrocuted accidentally in his Bangkok room, Merton is returned to his beloved abbey to be laid to rest in a grave overlooking the woods so familiar to him from his twenty-seven years of monastic life at Gethsemani. Thirty years after his death, the contributions of Thomas Merton remain as vital as ever. Completing the published Journals of Thomas Merton, The Other Side of the Mountain conveys the intense spiritual exploration and powerful lessons that filled his short life.

The spiritual and psychological insights of these essays were nurtured in a monastic milieu, but their issues are universally human. Thomas Merton lays a foundation for personal growth and transformation through fidelity to "our own truth and inner being." His main focus is our desire and need to attain "a fully human and personal identity." This classic is a newly restored and corrected edition and the inaugural volume of Gethsemani Studies in Psychological and Religious Anthropology, a series of books that explores, through the twin perspectives of psychology and religion, the dynamics and depths of being fully human. "When I speak of the contemplative life I do not mean the institutional, cloistered life, . . . I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development . . . . Discovering the contemplative life is a new self-discovery. One might say it is the flowering of a deeper identity on an entirely different plane . . ." --Thomas Merton, from the book

The Psalms, which Thomas Merton called "one of the most valid forms of prayer for men of all time," are the most significant and influential collection of religious poems ever written, summing up the theology of the Old Testament and serving as daily nourishment for the devout. Bread in the Wilderness sets forth Merton''s belief that "the Psalms acquire, for those who know how to enter into them, a surprising depth, a marvelous and inexhaustible actuality. They are bread, miraculously provided by Christ, to feed those who have followed Him into the wilderness." Merton''s goal in this moving book is to help the reader enter into the Psalms: "The secret is placed in the hands of each Christian. It only needs to be discovered and fulfilled in our own lives." The new ND Classic edition of Bread in the Wilderness faithfully reproduces the beautiful, large-format original 1953 New Directions books, created by the celebrated designer Alvin Lustig and lavishly illustrated throughout with photographs of a remarkable medieval crucifix at Perpignan, France.

Cloistered in a remote Kentucky monastery, Thomas Merton struggled as a young man to reconcile his preferred contemplative life and his public passion for writing. Here is the remarkable development of Thomas Merton monk, poet, and social critic as documented in nearly 30 years'' of correspondence with his mentor and publisher, James Laughlin.

These letters deal with periods of serious crisis in Merton''s life and vocation, about which many rumors and half-truths were circulated during his lifetime. They give readers, for the first time in his own words, the true details and the behind-the-scenes facts. Things came to a head in 1959 when Merton petitioned the Vatican, asking for an indult of exclaustration, or release, not from the Trappist Order, but for "a more solitary primitive existence in a monastic life" outside the United States. Abbot James Fox made a trip to Rome and the indult was not granted. Later Merton, who despised Communism and advocated Gandhian non-violence, was forbidden to publish anything against war and nuclear aggression - as if it was inappropriate for a monk to oppose war.

Letters to James Baldwin, Evelyn Waugh, Henry Miller, and more by the famed monk, “one of the great American letter-writers of the century” (Kirkus Reviews). From 1948 until his death in 1968, Trappist monk and author of The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton corresponded with writers around the world, sharing with them his concerns about war, violence and repression, racism and injustice, and all forms of human aggression. Addressed to Evelyn Waugh, Czeslaw Milosz, Boris Pasternak, James Baldwin, Walker Percy, Victoria Ocampo, Henry Miller, Jacques Maritain, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Carlos Williams, and others, this collection “reveals aspects of the monk that are seldom seen in literature apart from his letters” (Booklist). “Witty . . . confessional . . . insightful.” —The Boston Globe “Highly articulate and quietly inspirational.” —Publishers Weekly

Opening with Merton''s twenty-nine-year correspondence with the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren, this book continues with his letters to relatives and friends on a rich variety of topics. Selected, edited, and with an Introduction by Robert E. Daggy; Preface by William H. Shannon; Index.

Includes excerpts from "Seven storey mountain", "Conjectures of a guilty bystander" and many other works including a chronology of Merton''s life.

The author describes the reasons for his trip to Asia and reflects on the constrictions of the monastic life.