By Peter Smith, "Thomas Merton's works live on" - Louisville Courier-Journal - Louisville, KY, USA
Monday, December 8, 2008
Joel Klepac hadn't even been born when Thomas Merton died suddenly in Thailand 40 years ago this week.
Yet Klepac is among those from around the world who continue to draw inspiration from the Kentucky monk who poured out his restless soul in dozens of books and became one of the most influential spiritual writers of the 20th century.
Klepac has worked among impoverished street children in eastern Romania since 2000, meeting basic needs such as food, clothes and education, and he takes inspiration from the way Merton was a spiritual mentor to social-protest activists in the 1960s.
"People who are working among the poor, among marginalized people, are always being burned out, and it's a very fine line to pull yourself back continually from the front lines (for) prayer or solitude," Klepac, 33, said during a visit last week to the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Roman Catholic monastery in Nelson County, Ky., where Merton lived.
Merton's writings "speak directly to my generation," Klepac said. "Thomas Merton is one of the guys that help you find this middle ground where you don't ignore the injustice. He can be a voice that speaks about finding God in the midst of that struggle."
Merton died on Dec. 10, 1968, exactly 27 years after he entered Gethsemani.
When the Cambridge- and Columbia-educated Merton came to Kentucky, he embarked on a severe monastic lifestyle in the Trappist order and never expected to see much of the outside world. But his abbot encouraged him to write an autobiography, and the result was "The Seven Storey Mountain," the story of an orphan's journey from joyless pleasure to religious fulfillment in the monastery.
It became a surprise best-seller in a spiritually hungry post-World War II America and turned Merton into a rare celebrity monk.
He continued to draw a following with numerous writings on contemplative prayer and, more controversially, on such subjects as protesting segregation, the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.
His death at 53 came on the other side of the world at a Catholic-Buddhist conference after meetings with the Dalai Lama and other Eastern religious leaders with whom he was conducting groundbreaking dialogues.
In Louisville alone, he is honored by such things as a statue at Bellarmine University and a larger-than-life photo of Merton and the Dalai Lama along Muhammad Ali Boulevard -- just up from Thomas Merton Square at the Fourth Street intersection.
Dozens of books by Merton remain in print, new ones about him are coming out and recent Merton translations have appeared in such languages as Russian, Chinese, German and Polish.
"There's more being published than at any time," said Paul Pearson, director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, an archive holding more than 50,000 items, including letters, original manuscripts, paintings and calligraphy by Merton.
"I remember somebody once saying that we're still catching up with Merton, that he's so far ahead of us," Pearson said.
While many are familiar with Merton's interfaith dialogues with Buddhists, for example, he also worked on a matter of great 21st-century concern -- Christian-Muslim dialogue.
A new book is being prepared on his in-depth correspondence on prayer with Abdul Aziz, a Pakistani Sufi, or Islamic mystic.
Merton had considered studying Sufism in Iran after the Bangkok conference, according to the book "Merton and Sufism: The Untold Story," produced by the Louisville-based publisher Fons Vitae.
Some, however, say Merton's legacy is mixed.
"We continue to have our seminarians read 'The Seven Storey Mountain' as a way of showing the processes of conversion, and certainly there's something romantic about Merton's story," said the Rev. Denis Robinson, president of St. Meinrad School of Theology, a Catholic seminary in Spencer County, Ind. But he said aspects of Merton's later works "are less appealing," such as his interfaith activities and his "waning interest in the traditional expressions of religious life and monastic life."
But supporters of Merton cite his call to "remain perfectly faithful to a Christian or Western monastic commitment and yet learn in depth from ... a Hindu or Buddhist discipline or experience."
And many find Merton appealing precisely because he continued to change.
Jonathan Montaldo -- who directs retreats for the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living -- said he has been sold on Merton since he began reading him decades ago at age 13.
"I wanted what he was looking for," Montaldo said. "That was Merton's gift. He made you identify with him."
Montaldo quoted a college student who recently told him of Merton, "This guy writes as if he's writing directly to me."
The Louisville-based Merton Institute is host of a retreat house near Gethsemani and supplies study materials to groups around the country that are seeking ways to integrate prayer into their relations with others, God, themselves and nature.
For many people, "it's kind of a revelation that our contemplative life is about our everyday active life and about our relationships," executive director Robert Toth said.
Brother Paul Quenon, part of a generation of monks who were trained under Merton when they entered Gethsemani, said a group of lay people has been meeting at the abbey since the 1970s to discuss Merton's work.
"They find they can talk about things they otherwise can't talk about," he said. "… Merton has a way of just opening things up."
[Picture 1: Joel Klepac. Photo by Peter Smith.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Joel Klepac hadn't even been born when Thomas Merton died suddenly in Thailand 40 years ago this week.
Yet Klepac is among those from around the world who continue to draw inspiration from the Kentucky monk who poured out his restless soul in dozens of books and became one of the most influential spiritual writers of the 20th century.
Klepac has worked among impoverished street children in eastern Romania since 2000, meeting basic needs such as food, clothes and education, and he takes inspiration from the way Merton was a spiritual mentor to social-protest activists in the 1960s.
"People who are working among the poor, among marginalized people, are always being burned out, and it's a very fine line to pull yourself back continually from the front lines (for) prayer or solitude," Klepac, 33, said during a visit last week to the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Roman Catholic monastery in Nelson County, Ky., where Merton lived.
Merton's writings "speak directly to my generation," Klepac said. "Thomas Merton is one of the guys that help you find this middle ground where you don't ignore the injustice. He can be a voice that speaks about finding God in the midst of that struggle."
Merton died on Dec. 10, 1968, exactly 27 years after he entered Gethsemani.
When the Cambridge- and Columbia-educated Merton came to Kentucky, he embarked on a severe monastic lifestyle in the Trappist order and never expected to see much of the outside world. But his abbot encouraged him to write an autobiography, and the result was "The Seven Storey Mountain," the story of an orphan's journey from joyless pleasure to religious fulfillment in the monastery.
It became a surprise best-seller in a spiritually hungry post-World War II America and turned Merton into a rare celebrity monk.
He continued to draw a following with numerous writings on contemplative prayer and, more controversially, on such subjects as protesting segregation, the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.
His death at 53 came on the other side of the world at a Catholic-Buddhist conference after meetings with the Dalai Lama and other Eastern religious leaders with whom he was conducting groundbreaking dialogues.
In Louisville alone, he is honored by such things as a statue at Bellarmine University and a larger-than-life photo of Merton and the Dalai Lama along Muhammad Ali Boulevard -- just up from Thomas Merton Square at the Fourth Street intersection.
Dozens of books by Merton remain in print, new ones about him are coming out and recent Merton translations have appeared in such languages as Russian, Chinese, German and Polish.
"There's more being published than at any time," said Paul Pearson, director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, an archive holding more than 50,000 items, including letters, original manuscripts, paintings and calligraphy by Merton.
"I remember somebody once saying that we're still catching up with Merton, that he's so far ahead of us," Pearson said.
While many are familiar with Merton's interfaith dialogues with Buddhists, for example, he also worked on a matter of great 21st-century concern -- Christian-Muslim dialogue.
A new book is being prepared on his in-depth correspondence on prayer with Abdul Aziz, a Pakistani Sufi, or Islamic mystic.
Merton had considered studying Sufism in Iran after the Bangkok conference, according to the book "Merton and Sufism: The Untold Story," produced by the Louisville-based publisher Fons Vitae.
Some, however, say Merton's legacy is mixed.
"We continue to have our seminarians read 'The Seven Storey Mountain' as a way of showing the processes of conversion, and certainly there's something romantic about Merton's story," said the Rev. Denis Robinson, president of St. Meinrad School of Theology, a Catholic seminary in Spencer County, Ind. But he said aspects of Merton's later works "are less appealing," such as his interfaith activities and his "waning interest in the traditional expressions of religious life and monastic life."
But supporters of Merton cite his call to "remain perfectly faithful to a Christian or Western monastic commitment and yet learn in depth from ... a Hindu or Buddhist discipline or experience."
And many find Merton appealing precisely because he continued to change.
Jonathan Montaldo -- who directs retreats for the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living -- said he has been sold on Merton since he began reading him decades ago at age 13.
"I wanted what he was looking for," Montaldo said. "That was Merton's gift. He made you identify with him."
Montaldo quoted a college student who recently told him of Merton, "This guy writes as if he's writing directly to me."
The Louisville-based Merton Institute is host of a retreat house near Gethsemani and supplies study materials to groups around the country that are seeking ways to integrate prayer into their relations with others, God, themselves and nature.
For many people, "it's kind of a revelation that our contemplative life is about our everyday active life and about our relationships," executive director Robert Toth said.
Brother Paul Quenon, part of a generation of monks who were trained under Merton when they entered Gethsemani, said a group of lay people has been meeting at the abbey since the 1970s to discuss Merton's work.
"They find they can talk about things they otherwise can't talk about," he said. "… Merton has a way of just opening things up."
[Picture 1: Joel Klepac. Photo by Peter Smith.
Picture 2: Merton & Sufism: http://www.fonsvitae.com/merton.html]
Click on the title of this article for more pictures and a video by Peter Smith.
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