Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a social activist and influential spiritual writer. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (book 94) was a bestseller. He wrote books, poems and articles on monastic spirituality, civil rights, and nonviolent action. (For his books I’ve read, click on his name.)

This book was edited by Jonathan Montaldo of The Merton Institute for Contemporary Living, whose 11-page Introduction summarizes Thomas Merton’s monastic life as a writer and active voice of protest about many issues. This book has a listing of 19 Merton books that Montaldo used and 5-pp of references to these Merton books. Montaldo arranged selected paragraphs (nearly all one page or much less) into seven chapters: 1. The Inner Ground of Love; 2. Living in Wisdom; 3. Contemplative Listening; 4. Dialog With Silence; 5. The Inner Experience of Love; 6. A Monastic Life of Prayer and Protest; 7. Epilogue: The Door to Clear Light. To give you an idea of his writing, I give some paragraphs whose wisdom I found especially insightful.

“Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spiritual awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It 'knows' the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes beyond reason and beyond simple faith ... It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words, or even in clear concepts.” [from Ch 2]

“The Christian is then not simply a man of good will, who commits himself to a certain set of beliefs, who has a definite dogmatic conception of the universe, of man, and of man’s reason for existing. He is not simply one who follows a moral code of brotherhood and benevolence with strong emphasis on certain rewards and punishments dealt out to the individual. Underlying Christianity is not simply a set of doctrines about God considered as dwelling remotely in heaven, and man struggling on earth, trying to appease a distant God by means of virtuous acts. On the contrary Christians themselves too often fail to realize that the infinite God is dwelling within them, so that He is in them and they are in Him. They remain unaware of the presence of the infinite source of being right in the midst of the world and men. True Christian wisdom is therefore oriented to the experience of divine Light which is present in the world, the Light in whom all things are, and which is nevertheless unknown to the world because no mind can see or grasp its infinity.” [from Ch. 2]

“By meditation I penetrate the innermost ground of my life, seek the full understanding of God’s will for me, of God’s mercy to me, of my absolute dependence upon him. But the penetration must be authentic. It must be something genuinely lived by me.” [from Ch. 3]

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. Bit I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You will never leave me to face my perils alone.” [from Ch. 3]

“Hard as it is to convey in human language, there is a very real and very recognizable (but almost indefinable) presence of God, in which we confront Him in prayer knowing Him by Whom we are known, aware of Him Who is aware of us, loving Him by Whom we know ourselves to be loved. Present to ourselves in the fullness of our own personality, we are present to Him Who is infinite in His Being, His Otherness, His Self-hood. It is not a vision face-to-face, but a certain presence of self to Self in which, with the reverent attention of our whole being, we know Him in Whom all things have their being. The ‘eye’ which opens to His presence is in the very center of our humility, in the very heart of our freedom, in the very depths of our spiritual nature. Meditation is the opening of this eye.” [from Ch. 4]

“In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his own thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself – diversions, entertainments, business – but by its own constructive activity. That is to say that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life and directing it in accordance with his own inner truth, discovered in meditation and under the eyes of God. He derives strength not from what he gets out of things and people, but from giving himself to life and to others. He discovers the secret of life in the ‘creative energy of love’ – not love as a sentimental or sensual indulgence, but as a profound and self-oblative expression of freedom.” [from Ch. 5]

There are many other pages that I dog-eared in this book. For words about him, I suggest looking, on Amazon.com. at the flaps of this little hardbound book, for which I give my highest recommendation. It should as a good introduction to those who never before had the pleasure of reading Thomas Merton. Of his three books I've read, this one had a very good editor, which is probably why I rated it much higher than the other two. Another reason may be that this book reflects the thoughts of a man with a deeper and more mature spirituality than I deduced from the other two books. If this is indeed true, then praise goes to the editor for making such excellent choices of what to include.