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. ...

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...

And Then Along Came the 'Sixties

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

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...

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...

Jack Kerouac on Robert Lax

During his years of unsuccess, when he was actually at his purest and best, an "unpublished freak," as he describes himself in a late summer 1954 letter to Robert Giroux, living for his art alone, Kerouac contemplated entering a monaster...

New Year's Eve Varia

Twilight Zone marathon is on Plenty of nonsense is being spewed about inequality. Pitchfork Pat talks sense. Hillary had an unlucky year, and thank God for that. I enjoyed Nebraska. ObamaCare is not Obama's Care. An alternative t...