Thomas Merton Appreciation Week!

Jubilee Fellows was splendid tonight. Lots of good discussion and thought provoking ideas about what the Church is and how we respond to those who say "Jesus-YES! Church-No!" Very interesting indeed, especially thinking about how my own response to that has changed from my 16 year old self to today's self.

Besides that, I've been enlisted to go first for our "Cloud of Witnesses" projects. Each of us will give a presentation on a "witness" in history whom we admire and want to share about. I, of course, am doing my presentation on Thomas Merton. I'm very excited about the project and so this week will be Thomas Merton Appreciation Week :) I'll hopefully be finishing up Seven Storey Mountain and research more of what he's written. Thomas Merton has been my literary mentor since June 2, 2005--that's when I first picked up and bought his book No Man is an Island. For the last two and a half years, I have gone back to this book time and time again, and it has followed me around the world to Yellowstone and Scotland. I've read his words on Silence and Solitude while riding on a bus to and from my volunteer placement. I've read his words on vocation during times of questioning and in times of living it out. His wisdom has inspired me, shaped me, and affirmed me. He articulated so much of what my heart had been telling me about what it means to pursue dreams and that God wills us to be ourselves.

Reading his autobiography has been huge in developing a greater respect for his life and work. It's one thing to imagine a monk and undermine him for his reclusiveness--it's another thing to read him knowing that his first ambition in life was to seek out every possible material thing and and travel as a connoisseur of pleasure.

On top of it all, Merton is wonderfully accessible and articulate. It doesn't take long before you get used to his writing style, and each chapter in No Man is an Island can be read individually or as part of a larger process.

I'm grateful to Merton and to what his words have meant to me. I know that he will continue to be an influence in my life. I can hardly wait to meet him one day :)

More later, likely :)

Bets