Week 19 · mystical

Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a party-going Columbia University grad student who became a Trappist monk in rural Kentucky and then couldn't stop writing. He published over 70 books from inside a monastery, covering everything from contemplative prayer to racial justice to nuclear disarmament. He was a hermit with a global audience, and the contradiction never stopped bothering him.

“"We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity." He wrote that from a monastery in the hills of Kentucky to readers all over the world. The irony of a hermit teaching unity wasn't lost on him.”