A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life (The Journals of Thomas Merton, vol.3) - Hardcover

Thomas Merton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060654783 ISBN 13: 9780060654788

Publisher: Harper San Francisco, 1996

Synopsis

A third volume of the Trappist monk's journals explores the question of who and what a monk should be as he studies Zen, existentialism, Latin American culture, and Marxism and deals with disapproving superiors and the rigors of monastic life.

About this title

About the Author:

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Trappist monk, spiritual master, writer, and peace activist. His spiritual classics include The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation, and The Sign of Jonas.

From Booklist:

Like the first two volumes of Merton's journals, this third volume is full of insight into his life and work. Readers will be grateful that when it came to his journals, Merton's Trappist silence did not leave him speechless. In a 1956 entry, he notes that he had "always wanted to write about everything" --not to write a book that "covers everything" or contains everything, but "a book in which everything can go." The journals accomplish this largely by avoiding what he refers to (in a 1958 entry) as "the apostolate of alienation and hatred," a "mania for making everyone else like oneself." Merton's great gift, which shines through in the bits and pieces of his journals even more than in his finished work, is an ability to listen and respond to a world in which everything does go. Lawrence Cunningham notes in his introduction that Merton's journals are full of reflection on what it means to be a monk. In this volume, as in the second one, that reflection plays a major role in shaping his discernment of the world and his place in it. This volume maintains the high standards established in the first two and will leave readers anxiously anticipating the remaining four. Steve Schroeder

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper San Francisco
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060654783
• ISBN 13: 9780060654788
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Lawrence Cunningham