Thomas Merton: Essential Writings

Thomas Merton: Essential Writings. Edited by Christine M. Bochen. Modern Spiritual Masters Series. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000. 191 pp. $14.00 (paper).

In her preface to this fine anthology, the editor, Christine Bochen, acknowledges that three other anthologies of Thomas Merton's writings are currently available: Lawrence Cunningham, ed., Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master: The Essential Writings (Paulist Press, 1992); Thomas P. McDonnell, ed., The Thomas Merton Reader (Harcourt Brace, 1962; rev. ed., Doubleday, 1974); and William H. Shannon, ed., Passion and Peace: The Social Essays (Crossroad, 1995). (In addition, there is also an excellent selection from Merton's complete journals now available: Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo, eds., The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals [HarperCollins, 1999]). With so many anthologies in print, the question naturally arises: Is there need for another? The answer in this case is "Yes."

At 191 pages the shortest of the anthologies, Thomas Merton: Essential Writings is divided into three sections that "explore three themes that are especially significant in Merton's spirituality: contemplation, compassion, and unity" (p. 18). Selections are short, most ranging from a paragraph to four or five pages, although there are some longer, complete pieces. Bohen supplies brief introductions to each section and to some of the selections, plus a good, relatively long general introduction. The organization of this volume proved a pleasant revelation to me. Merton went to the monastery to find contemplation, discovered compassion along with it and, more and more towards the end of his life, wrote and spoke about-and lived out-unity, the sacred communion of all persons in Christ. Merton's witness to honest ecumenism and loving religious pluralism is even more needed now than it was in his day. In these areas he truly was a pioneer and a prophet.

Merton is always worth rereading and his words are still bracing and absolutely necessary: "At the root of all war is fear: not so much the fear men have of one another as the fear they have of everything" (p. 107). "The heresy of individualism: thinking myself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary `unity against all others" (p. 142). "It is my belief that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in the part of humanity that is most remote from our own" (p. 153). "It can be said that ecumenism in its deepest and most living form has been born in the trenches and barracks of wars and concentration camps" (p. 184).

An anthology can be a dangerous thing, a cutting and snipping that leaves either a mannequin or a mummy. Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, however, is living, breathing Merton. This volume would make an excellent book for a parish reading group or for someone who wants a short anthology of Merton's writings, while the anthologies by Cunningham, McDonnell, and Shannon listed above are better suited for more intensive and thorough study, as in a college or seminary course. All of them are excellent places to begin a lifelong journey with the greatest Christian writer of the twentieth century.

Tim VIVIAN

Saint Paul's Episcopal Church

Bakersfield, California

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Summer 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved