Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings - Softcover

Merton, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060656034 ISBN 13: 9780060656034

Publisher: HarperOne, 2004

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Though best known for his spiritual writings, Thomas Merton also made drawings, whose Eastern-style brushwork have a meditative power rivaling that of his finest prayers. In Dialogues with Silence, these (mostly unpublished) drawings--of human figures, churches, the crucifixion, and abstract forms--are paired on pages with the texts of his well-known prayers. Editor Jonathan Montaldo's introduction to this volume asserts that Merton, the author of classics including The Seven Storey Mountain, became a:

witness for his generation of the way out of self-defeating individualism by tracking anew the boundaries of that ancient other country, whose citizens recognize a hidden ground of unity and love among all living things.

He might have added that, for Merton, one direct escape from individualism was the act of loving other individuals, an aspect of Merton's character that shines clearly in the many portraits here. Notably, the most arresting of these images is a face without features. It hovers next to a prayer that begins, "O God, my God, why am I so mute?" --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author:

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is widely regarded as one of the most influential spiritual writers of modern times. He was a Trappist monk, writer, and peace and civil rights activist. His bestselling books include The Seven-Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation, and Mystics and Zen Masters.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060656034
• ISBN 13: 9780060656034
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208