Ace Weekly

A Man For All Seasons
People still connect with monk from Nelson County.
By Chris Webb

People who don't even believe in God still believe in Thomas Merton.

More than 30 years after his untimely death, fascination with the Trappist monk as a spiritual force in our own time only escalates.

Why do they continue to turn to this "farmer from Nelson County?" What is the enduring attraction? Unquestionably, Merton was one of the most influential monks in history. He has a wide readership, one that is not primarily monastic. Some would even argue that his writing is as popular among the secular as it is the spiritual and/or religious audience. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, is a modern classic, still in print after more than 50 years, translated into more than 20 languages, and on several lists as one of the top 100 books of the last century.

As the anniversary of his death approaches (on December 10), it becomes increasingly clear that he's made an enduring, visceral connection - as artist, writer, thinker, teacher, social advocate - that transcends even his extensive literary and philosophical contributions.

One of my favorite stories about Merton," recalls Maurice Manning, winner of the 2000 Yale Series of Younger Poets, "is one that Will Campbell, the Baptist preacher and civil activist, shared with me.... One of the people who was attracted to Merton in his time was the author Walker Percy. Merton had written a couple of articles that Campbell published in Katallagete, so they were acquaintances. Percy, also a friend of Campbell, asked to be introduced to Thomas Merton. So they made arrangements to see him and drove up from Tennessee to visit the monastery. Now, by this time, Percy was famous in his own right, having won the National Book Award. But Percy was ready to humble himself in front of this great religious man. He was expecting some great revelatory encounter.

"When they got to the monastery, Merton was itching to go for a ride in the car. So they went and bought a six-pack of beer, came back to the monastery, and sat around talking and drinking beer. There's something about that story that... impressed me. Here's a guy that was so revered, looked upon as such a holy figure, a man so absorbed in his spiritual life, that socializing in this way seemed like a completely foreign concept. But the truth was, behind his persona and all the important things he had to say was this guy who was really down to earth, apparently interested in connecting with people in a very simple and honest way."

"Thomas Merton," says Ray Smith, a local musician and songwriter, "basically rescued Christianity from the Pat Robertsons of the world as far as I was concerned. For me, he reconceptualized and remystified Christianity. East-West dialogue. Meeting with the Dalai Lama. Incorporating Zen. Having a drink with Walker Percy and Will Campbell. This was a refreshing model of the Christian identity."

"Merton was writing," says Gary Houchens, a teacher at Christ the King School, "in a way that challenged contemporary culture in several ways. First, with social justice teaching, where Merton raised issues that comfortable Christianity tended to overlook. But also, by playing witness to a very universal humanistic element in Christianity."

In many ways, Merton energized monastic theology and gave it an extraordinary relevance for the contemporary world.

"Also," adds Houchens, "Merton was a very paradoxical person. He understood his own identity to be wrapped up in paradox. He was a poet, an artist, and an activist who chose to live the life of a monk. And in his ancient yearning for wisdom, he brought together many different, often opposing forces, like politics and religion, and was able to identify with them all."

Naomi Burton Stone, Merton's literary agent and close friend has written, "Each one of us knows a different Thomas Merton." because Merton's interests are so varied and because he wrote with such a universal humanity, he is able to reach just about anyone.

The Examined Life

To Merton, faith and dialogue were more about asking questions and exploring oneself than delivering the answers. With sensitivity, he attempted to live an examined life amid all the contradictions of the world. Merton's approach was genuinely human, as a man struggling like the rest of world to find meaning. Though he lived in a monastery, his life was still one filled with decisions to be made and questions to be answered. And his writing challenged people to see beyond the surface, beyond the transitory, to get to the enduring human values.

Jonathan Montaldo, director of the Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville and co-editor of The Intimate Merton, points out that, "Merton's gift is to write in such a way that you forget about him talking and think of yourself and identify. He seduces you to identify with him. He speaks directly to you. When you read Merton, it's like a mirror... you see a bit of yourself staring back."

Merton's readers find a spiritual writer who isn't shy about his own experiences and personal struggles. Rooted in religious tradition, he was continuously searching for and embracing the truth no matter where he found it. He was honest about his conflicts and shortcomings, reaching deep down and touching the injuries of each person's mind and spirit.

Merton's own personal history also reveals a man of struggle and conflict, of temptation and suffering.

Brother Paul Quenon, a monk, poet, and photographer at the Abbey of Gethsemani who studied as a novice under Thomas Merton, says "Merton was somewhat of a drifter in his youth. He attended the best schools. Yet, he converted to Catholicism and plunged into the deepest mysticism that was available to him. And he did so with a breadth of mind and spirit, a wit and insight, that gives his story and his writing so much appeal. Nowadays, there are lots of young people who don't know Thomas Merton at all. But many end up finding him somehow, and when they do, they connect with him and love him."

Dr. Don Nugent, a retired history professor from the University of Kentucky who has written and lectured extensively on Thomas Merton, believes that "Merton's universality is a definite magnet. He speaks in such a way that people all over the world feel as if he's speaking directly to them. He reaches a wellspring of humanity where he can speak for humanity at large."

"Merton was a great teacher," adds Montaldo. "He speaks in such a way that you can't help but get interested in what he gets interested in. You look at the world with him, then you open the window and climb through with his enthusiasm and go beyond the teacher to experience it yourself."

'An American Lama'

As a student of the world, Merton's interests were many. Reading widely on the literature of the day, he remained in touch with broader elements of culture. Staying informed on political and social issues of the world, he spoke out regarding war, racism, and inequality.

"Merton's interests were very wide," says Montaldo, "and so his audience is very wide. Merton wrote and spoke out about social justice, which tends to have a much wider appeal than monastic spirituality."

Thomas Merton was a person of cosmopolitan tastes. A fan of many types of music, including jazz and classical, Merton was open to just about anything. He was intrigued by Bob Dylan's music, especially as social criticism. He wrote about and studied the likes of William Blake, James Joyce, Boris Pasternak, William Faulkner, Rainer Maria Rilke, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, John Milton, and many more.

Later on, especially in the last decade of his life, Merton's interest in other religions began to take on more prominence.

"Besides engaging in contemplative practices," says Montaldo, "Merton had extensive dialogue with practitioners of other religions all around the world."

Not one to be fenced in by Catholic tradition, Merton studied Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sufism, Buddhism, and so on. In his research, Merton discovered striking similarities with the teachings of Christianity and became a crusader for a return to life that is balanced between action and contemplation and an advocate of cooperation and brotherhood between East and West. Eventually, Merton's openness to other religions, especially Asian religions, helped him to focus his vision and deepen his understanding of life's mystery. Merton, in his many dialogues, even conversed with the Dalai Lama, who went so far as to call Merton, an "American Lama."

Though he very much valued solitude, Merton corresponded with over a thousand people, including Ernesto Cardenal, Dorothy Day, Ethel Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Zen master D.T. Suzuki, and Muslim friend and Sufi master Abdul Aziz, among many others. Making every effort to identify with people, he always attempted to find "the hidden ground of love" on which to comfortably meet.

Angeline Robertson, a local artist and student at the University of Kentucky, points out that, "Merton touches you in a way that you feel totally comfortable. He just has this peculiar way of talking directly to you and changing you. He's a writer like no other I've come across. I've often heard people refer to him as kind of a rebel. And I guess he was. He challenged many accepted conventions, asking questions about established ways of doing things. He was rebellious in that he defied the status quo and pushed for reform in all aspects that would nourish the spiritual life. He went against the grain a bit, pushing for his essays on social concerns to be published, despite the advice and urging of his peers. He remained open to the world and to other people in so many ways, yet he followed a path that was singularly his. Many people my age, college students, have really taken to Thomas Merton..."

The Legacy

Lawrence S. Cunningham, author of Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master, wrote that, "Merton, in short, was capable of entering the larger world of cultural discourse while rooted in a tradition that gave a peculiar weight and a ring of authenticity to his words."

Dr. Nugent adds, "I truly believe that Merton was one of the great spiritual thinkers of the 20th century. He has the ability to reach virtually everyone at some point, as poet, as social critic, as storyteller, as historian. He was interested in virtually everything and everyone. He had dialogue with Joan Baez and corresponded with teens, many of whom sent him music to listen to. He had a wonderful sense of humor and a genuine mystique."

"And Merton wasn't just an academic," adds Nugent. "He lived and dealt with the things he wrote about. Anthony Padovano, in his book titled The Human Journey, called Merton a 'Symbol of a Century'. I truly believe he's gonna be a man of the 21st century as well."

Another testament to the magnitude of Merton's appeal is the continuing development of the Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville which was founded with Merton's cooperation in 1963. As the major repository for Merton's work, the Merton Center houses over 800 of his drawings, over 600 audio tapes of his lectures and teachings, and over 1200 of his photographs. The Merton Center contains more than 40,000 Merton-related items in all, and gets a bit bigger every year.

Merton still emerges in contemporary journal articles that continue to explore his writings. There are even two journals specifically devoted to Merton, The Merton Seasonal and The Merton Annual. All around, people gather together in groups, as Merton Societies, for conferences, and lectures. In fact, there are twenty-five chapters of the International Thomas Merton Society all over the world who meet on a regular basis.

In short time, many of these societies will gather to honor Merton as the anniversary of his tragic death approaches. On December 10, 1968, Thomas Merton passed away, exactly twenty-seven years from the day he first arrived at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Neither Merton nor anyone at Gethsemani could have predicted the impression he would make on the world for years to come.

Thomas Merton has assisted in the spiritual journey of thousands of people, many of them decades after his untimely passing. But more astonishing is the fact that some of these people, forever changed, have as their only link with any form of spirituality whatsoever, a Trappist monk who lived in Nelson Country, Kentucky.

The online version of this story will also include a selected bibliography of works by and about Thomas Merton.