Thomas Merton - Running on Silent

Thomas Merton is a monk I discovered on a train to Baltimore. Merton died in 1968, but his writings are more than brilliantly alive.

Scholars, fans and academics around the world are now studying the literature that he left behind. There are three reasons why I - a non-Catholic - am intrigued by the writings of a Trappist monk who lived in a 'cell' in a monastery in Kentucky for most of his life.

(1) Merton writes brilliantly. Regardless of whether you share Merton's spiritual concerns, the quality of his literature and the sensitivity of his prose is undeniable.

(2) As an historical figure, Merton's life is fascinating. Just as the mythic personas of John Donne and Jack London inform an appreciation of their works, so the character of Merton compels the reader. Merton was a drunken dilettante from an artistic French family. He caroused his way through Cambridge and Columbia universities and wrote for the New Yorker. No-one expected him to enter a silent Order, but Thomas Merton became a monk. While living in the confines of one of the strictest of religious institutions, he wrote his spiritual autobiography which became a bestseller. Isolated from the literary glory he had previously craved, Merton pounded out a theology which addressed the civil rights movement, the threat of nuclear war and the looming ecological crisis. From his rural cell he inspired the likes of Martin Luther King Jr.

(3) Though Merton's work is significant both for its literary merits and its relevance to socio-political issues in post-war America, his passion is for a transcendental spirituality rooted in the Orthodoxy of the Christian faith. His desire is to cut through the storm of images and noise that comprise contemporary life and touch spiritual reality. Thus, Merton's work parallels the metaphysical quest of Jack Kerouac and the other Beat writers who were roaring into American popular culture at the same time, while also sharing many characteristics of the spiritual-political art of Bob Dylan. Merton truly was at the apex of the American Zeitgeist yet his influence and achievements are only now being properly registered.