Thomas Merton: Insights and Interviews - Vol 1(of 2): Insights: Essays and Works

Thomas Merton: Insights and Interviews – Vol 1(of 2): Insights: Essays and Works

Thomas Merton
Glenn Amorosia

What was Merton like, really? These interviews, originally published in The Merton Annual, include personal stories and intimate reminiscences, humorous anecdotes and insightful reflections shared by Merton’s confreres, friends, and scholars. Together they illuminate the person and spirit of Thomas Merton himself – the monk, the writer, the friend, the spiritual guide, the social critic, the prophet. A collection to savor and treasure.

“This two-volume set of carefully selected works and interviews over four decades of The Merton Annual carefully curated primarily by the late prodigious Merton scholar and interpreter Victor A. Kramer is a sterling resource for Merton readers. Volume 1 presents Merton’s works that fill in important literary stations in the monk’s writing career. Volume 2 gathers transcriptions of interviews with figures who have guided the study of Merton’s legacy for the twenty-first century. David M. Odorisio provides an illuminating introduction to each volume, realizing this collection is “monumental”. These 1000 pages of precious materials further underscore Thomas Merton’s significance for our spiritual lives.”
      – Jonathan Montaldo, General editor with Gray Henry of the Fons Vitae’s nine-volume series, Thomas Merton & World Religions

ORDERING INFORMATION:

Volume 1– Insights: Essays and Works (548pp) includes original works by Merton spanning four decades that have only appeared in The Merton Annual and shows his progress as a writer from a teenager in England to his writings on Eastern religions towards the end of his life. To purchase Volume 1 only, click the ‘add to cart’ button above.

Volume 2 – Interviews: A Thomas Merton Oral History (562pp) Contains interviews about Merton with fellow religious both at Gethsemani and elsewhere, as well as interviews with friends and scholars.  To purchase Volume 2 only, click here.

To purchase both volumes as a book set, click here

Below the Product Description are reviews and quotes from the books, including the Tables of Contents of both volumes.

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Product Description

This book is really two books, two volumes, but neither book is like any other Merton book you may have read.

Volume I, “Intervals”, includes original works by Merton, only published in the Merton Annual.  Why do I dare say that it is not like anything you may have read by Merton?

We are all familiar with his works written with a common theme such as Faith and Violence or New Seeds or Contemplations.  We are also familiar with his volumes of journals, grouped by time period, or his letters, grouped by addressee.

“Intervals” is different.  These works, which have only been published in the Merton Annual over a period of more than three decades, are a virtual “sampler” of Merton works. As David Odorisio points out in the introduction to “Intervals”

“The essays included in Volume One serve as a kind of roving overview of Merton’s corpus filling in gaps and lacunae here and there, but also noting the periodic lapses or historical “intervals” that appear in between each essay.”

They show his progress as a writer from:
– a teenager in England
– through early adulthood after college at Columbia
– through that brief period where he was on the threshold to answering his vocation as a Catholic priest
– as a Novice Master writing pamphlets for his charges
– in his earlier more typical “orthodox” writings in the 1950’s
– to the beginnings of his writing on social issues in the early 1960’s
– to his writings on Eastern religions towards the end of his life

The gathering of these writings under one cover shows not only the progress and fluidity in his writing style, but also the diversity of works that he was capable of penning.

Volume II, “Interviews”, originated by Victor Kramer, Merton scholar and founding editor of the Merton Annual, as an “oral history.” The second volume, interviews with those who knew Merton or were instrumental in establishing his legacy.   He and several other Merton scholars interviewed individuals who knew Merton personally or who played significant roles in the years following his death in establishing his legacy.  Once again, these interviews were, with few exceptions, only published in the Merton Annual and their gathering together under one cover serves to be a “mind-expanding” experience not only for Merton devotees but for the first-time reader of Merton.

It is rare for the reader to “peak behind” the name of the author and see his personal life, motivations, both conventional and not. Those readers who are familiar with Merton works, have already had such a peak from himself in his journals, and to some extent by others in his letters.  But the interviews specifically focus on giving us a thorough understanding of the man, Father Louis, through the eyes of those who talked and/or corresponded with him, who lived with him, who visited with him, who prayed or studied with him, and may have even shared a beer and some barbecue with him.  The personal insights are sharp, insightful, and touching. once we see Merton through the eyes of these people, it only increases our appetite to read more of his writings.

“Is dedicated life cold storage?  Is a dedicated woman one who has been placed in cold storage, who has been place out of circulation, who has been removed from life, who has been frozen?…My idea of dedication implies that one has one initial conversion at the beginning of religious life and then no other, except the conversions that are pre-determined, predictable and set up according to the pattern of the annual retreat—the retreat master comes and defines for you your annual conversion which is simply a return to the original conversion.”
– Thomas Merton, “Comments on the Religious Life today”

“It is more important to have one convent with five people in it who are alive than to have a whole country of convents with people who are half dead or live a kind of living death which can sometimes happen in religion.”
– Thomas Merton, “Comments on the Religious Life today”

“Jesus stood entirely outside of all Jewish politics, because his Kingdom was not of this world. But his actions could be twisted to look like political revolutionism. And yet he was a “freedom fighter” in a different way. His death and resurrection were the culminating battle in his fight to liberate us from all forms of tyranny, all forms of domination by anything or anyone except the Spirit, the Law of Love, the “purpose and grace” of God. ”
– Thomas Merton, ” “He is Risen”

“As Cardinal Newman so rightly said, the greatest victories of the Church were all won before Constantine, in the days when there were no Christian armies and when the true Christian soldier was the martyr, whose witness to Christ was nonviolent. It was the martyrs who conquered Rome for Christ with a conquest that has been stable for twenty centuries. How long were the crusaders able to hold Jerusalem?”
– Thomas Merton, “Christian Perspectives in World Crisis”

TABLES OF CONTENTS

Volume 1 Table of Contents

Volume I: Essays

Preface ix
Acknowledgements, Appreciations, and Copyright xiii
An Introduction in Intervals  By David Odorisio

Part One – Pre-Monastic Writings
The Black Sheep: Forward by Paul Pearson
The Black Sheep

The Man in the Sycamore Tree: A Fragment of an Early Novel

Vocation to the Lay Apostolate: Editor’s Note by Patrick F. O’Connell
Vocation to the Lay Apostolate

Part Two – Monastic Concerns
The School of the Spirit:  Foreword by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
The School of the Spirit

Monastic Courtesy:  Editor’s Note by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
Monastic Courtesy

A Balanced Life of Prayer:  Foreword by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
A Balanced Life of Prayer

“The Monk and Sacred Art” and “Art and Worship”:  Editorial Note by Glenn Crider and Victor A. Kramer
The Monk and Sacred Art
Art and Worship

The Neurotic Personality in the Monastic Life:   Editor’s Note by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
The Neurotic Personality in the Monastic Life

Part Three – Correspondence and Commentary

The Context of Thomas Merton’s Letter Concerning “The Jesus Prayer’’   Introduction by Thomas Francis Smith

To Father Thomas Fidelis (Francis) Smith, O.C.S.O.

Notes after First Visit and Correspondence 1962-1968: Editor’s Note By Douglas V. Steere
Notes after First Visit and Correspondence 1962-1968

Answers For Hernan Lavin Cerda: On War, [etc.] :  Editor’s Note by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
Answers for Hernan Lavin Cerda: On War, [etc.]

About Contemplative Life Today:   An Editorial Note by Glenn Crider and Victor Kramer
About Contemplative Life Today

He is Risen

Christian Perspective in World Crisis

“Three Prayers” Written for Frank Kacmarcik

Comments About the Religious Life Today :  Editor’s Note by Jane Marie Richardson
Comments About the Religious Life Today

The Zen Insight of Shen Hui :  Introduction by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.
The Zen Insight of Shen Hui

Authentic Identity is Prayerful Existence :  Commentary by Glenn Crider

Prayer and Identity

Appendix

Index

Volume 2 Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments, Appreciations, and Copyright

An Introduction in Intervals, Part Two:
Interviews from The Merton Annual (1988–2022) By David M. Odorisio

Part One – Gethsemani Encounters

“A Dedication to Prayer and a Dedication to Humanity”
An Interview about Thomas Merton with James Conner, O.C.S.O.

Merton’s Contributions as Teacher, Writer and Community Member
An Interview with Abbot Flavian Burns, O.C.S.O.

“Truly Seeking God … in Christ”
An Interview with Chrysogonus Waddell, O.C.S.O.

Merton’s Vocation as Monastic & Writer
An Interview with Abbot John Eudes Bamberger, O.C.S.O.

Merton’s Quiet Influence
An Interview with Brother Frederic Collins, O.C.S.O.

“The Great Honesty”: Remembering Thomas Merton
An Interview with Abbot Timothy Kelly, O.C.S.O.

“Aware and Awake and Alive”
An Interview with Brother Paul Quenon, O.C.S.O.

Looking Back to Merton
An Interview with Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O.

Part Two – Interviews with Other Religious

Thomas Merton: A Monk Who “Succeeded”
An Interview with Dom M. Laurence Bourget, O.C.S.O.
“A Journey into Wholeness”
An Interview with Myriam Dardenne, O.C.S.O.

From Monastic Studies to Monastic Renewal
An Interview with Brendan Collins

“Unadorned Ideal”
An Interview in Two Parts with Methodius Telnack, O.C.S.O.

Daughter of Carmel; Son of Cîteaux: A Friendship Endures
An Interview about Thomas Merton with Angela Collins, O.C.D.

Growing into Responsibility
An Interview with Mary Luke Tobin, S.L.

Life through the Lens of Inner and Outer Freedom
An Interview with Jane Marie Richardson, S.L.

An Interview with Fr. Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.      

An Interview with Fr. Raymond Pedrizetti, O.S.B.      

A Single Sacred Community
An Interview with Charles Brandt

Part Three – Interviews with Friends and Scholars

Cultivating a Contemplative Lifestyle
An Interview with James Finley

Remarks Following a 2004 Poetry Reading
An Interview with Ernesto Cardenal

Transcript of the Question and Answer Session
for the Poetry Reading of Ernesto Cardenal

“Not Himself, but a Direction”
An Interview with John H. (Jack) Ford

“The Climate of Humor and Freedom”
An Interview with Ron Seitz

An Interview with James Laughlin about Thomas Merton

An Interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti about Thomas Merton

An Interview with Walker Percy about Thomas Merton

An Interview with W. H. (Ping) Ferry about Thomas Merton

Action at the Center
An Interview with W. H. (“Ping”) Ferry

“A Very Disciplined Person”
An Interview with Canon A. M. Allchin

A Conversation with Dr. Hildegard Goss-Mayr about Thomas Merton

An Interview about Thomas Merton with Dr. Martin E. Marty

Spirituality, Scholarship and Biography
An Interview with Anthony T. Padovano

From Faith to Joy: Studying the Church and Thomas Merton
An Interview with William H. Shannon

Living and Learning with Merton for Decades
An Interview with Victor A. Kramer

Reviews

“For almost forty years The Merton Annual has brought together seminal oral history interviews with people who knew Merton along with obscure writings by Merton himself. This volume is a sumptuous banquet bringing together the highlights of this important scholarship and providing readers with firsthand accounts of Merton from among his fellow monks, close friends, and other key figures, along with a broad range of Merton’s little-known, largely previously unpublished, works.”
Paul M. Pearson, Director, Thomas Merton Center
These two volumes, judiciously selected from The Merton Annual (1988-2022) primarily by the esteemed Victor Kramer, offer revealing personal and scholarly encounters with Thomas Merton, writer, monk and cosmologist. Scholars and readers alike will both prize and enjoy the collections in Insights and Intervals; they are plumb lines of received wisdom that will inform new and next perspectives on the Merton canon.
Lynn R. Szabo, Merton scholar and Professor Emerita, Trinity Western University, Canada, Ed. In The Dark Before Dawn: New and Selected Poems of Thomas Merton (2005)
Merton readers know well the sense of meeting Thomas Merton again as if for the first time. This two-volume treasure invites us to hear Merton – first in his voice and then through the words of those who knew him well. The essays in Vol. 1 enrich our understanding of Merton’s thinking on a host of perennial and timely concerns – spiritual, monastic, aesthetic, moral. The interviews in Vol.2, replete with stories and reminiscences, humorous anecdotes, and thoughtful reflections of Merton’s confreres, friends, and scholars, invite us to sit in on conversations that illuminate the person and spirit of Thomas Merton himself – the monk, the writer, the friend, the spiritual guide, the prophet – in all his mysterious complexity. Nothing short of a treasure trove!
Christine M. Bochen, professor emerita of religious studies at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York and a founding member and past president of the International Thomas Merton Society, author and co-author of numerous books about Thomas Merton
The collection of essays and interviews, first published in The Merton Annual, demonstrate the development of Merton’s thought and the breadth of his interest. Written over the course of three decades, the pieces – ranging from early autobiographical pieces to reflections on monastic life, contemplation, and prayer, to sacred art and the vocation of artist, to urgent social issues posed by violence, war, and technology – weave together the monastic, the spiritual, the aesthetic, and ethical concerns that inform Merton’s legacy. The stories and reminiscences, the humorous anecdotes, the thoughtful reflections of Merton’s confreres, friends, and scholars invite us to sit in on conversations that illuminate the person and spirit of Thomas Merton himself – the monk, the writer, the friend, the spiritual guide, the prophet. These volumes are treasure trove! And must- reads!