Maverick Philosopher

Merton on the Monastic Journey

Thomas Merton, The Monastic Journey, p. 155: If a solitary should one day find his way, by the grace and mercy of God, into a desert place in which he is not known, and if it is permitted to him by the divine pity to live there, and to...

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Tom Merton, Baez, Dylan, and Ry Cooder

Thomas Merton, though 51 years old in 1966, was wide open to the '60s Zeitgeist -- all of it. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume Six, p. 93, entry of 10 July 1966: Borrowed a record player and played Joan Baez over again -- and ...

Thomas Merton's Hostility to Scholastic Manualism and the Forgotten Fr. Hickey

As much of a flaky liberal as Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968) is, both politically and theologically, I love the guy I meet in the pages of the seven volumes of The Journals of Thomas Merton. I am presently savoring Volume Six, 1966-1967. ...

Three American Sophomores

The Restlessness of Thomas Merton, J. D. Salinger, and Jack Kerouac. On balance, a very good essay, but just wrong in places. For example: Due to our separation from God that occurred in the Garden, all men intuitively sense that the...

Spiritual Mountebanks

The world is full of hustlers and charlatans who prey upon spiritual seekers. One ought to be suspicious of anyone who claims enlightenment or special powers. The acid test, perhaps, is whether they demand money or sex for their services...

Lifestyle Rightism

Sohrab Ahmari is against it. Clean living and self-improvement are no substitute for political action. One form of Lifestyle Rightism is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option which Ahmari dubs "the New Frontierism" and criticizes for its ahistori...

Somebody Else's Faith

Thomas Merton, Journals, vol. III, p. 251, from the entry of 25 January 1959: He entered the monastery on somebody else's faith and lived there on somebody else's faith and when finally he had to face the fact that what was required w...

And Then Along Came the 'Sixties

I can easily seeHow Merton lost his wayBy exposing himselfTo events of the day.

Thomas Merton on Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Substack latest. Excerpt: One of the worst features of some New Age types is their conceit that they are beyond duality when they are firmly enmired in it. Perhaps the truly enlightened are beyond moral dualism and can live free of mo...

Merton, Marilyn, and David Carradine

Today, August 5th, is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. What follows is a post from 13 June 2009. .................... Thomas Merton, Journal (IV, 240), writing about Marilyn Monroe around the time of her death in 1962...