An ancient lifestyle which has been adapted, renewed, and is still being followed today, monasticism appears to some outside it as a quaint anachronism and to others as the sanest of all ways of living. Can it survive in the post post-modern world? A dozen insiders and outsiders 'monastics, academics, clergy, laypersons, hermits, cenobites, poets, and writers 'offer their reflections on the future of the monastic life of prayer and community. Contributing their insights are Michael Casey, Kathleen Norris, Lawrence Cunningham, Terrence Kardong, Bonnie Thurston, John Eudes Bamberger, Joan Chittister, Mary Margaret Funk, Gal Fitzpatrick, Francis Kline, Daniel Coughlin, Robert Morneau, Miriam Pollard, and Bernardo Olivera.
Patrick Hart, OCSO, (1925-2019), a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, entered the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1951 and served as secretary to Thomas Merton during the last year of his life. He edited many books by and about Thomas Merton during the thirty-eight years since the latter's death on December 10, 1968. He had served on the board of directors for Cistercian Publications for the past thirty years.