Merton & The New Year

There are certain people who seem to know us, and we them, even though we never met them in person. One of those people for me is the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Although I’d heard his name, I didn’t read anything written by him until 1975, seven years after his death. But once I read The Seven Storey Mountain, one of the oddest autobiographies ever written, I was hooked. Now nearly fifty years later, I am still drawn to his writings.

Usually, an autobiography is written by an older person, one who is looking back on his life. And usually, an autobiography is written by someone who has achieved fame in some area of life. After all, who would be interested in reading the autobiography of someone young and totally unknown?

By all standards of publishing, Merton’s youthful autobiography shouldn’t have sold well. And that’s what his publisher predicted, that Merton’s story wouldn’t make money, but it might do well enough to break even.

Instead, The Seven Storey Mountain became a best seller when it first appeared in 1948, and the book still sells well. His later books, many of them journals of his daily life in the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, also continue to be reprinted.

Many people share a similar feeling about Merton, that he seems to know his readers and their deeper yearnings. How he manages to seem so contemporary

55 years after his death is a mystery worth thinking about.

Many authors have been described as “timeless,” but eventually their words seem dated. Not so with Merton. Part of the reason for his continuing appeal is that he never offers pious or flowery spiritual platitudes. There is a bit of a wise guy, even a tough guy, that comes through in Merton’s writings, even when he’s describing the heights and depths of spiritual experience.

Another reason that Merton seems ever-current is that he approached monastic life like a jazz musician approaches a nightly gig. That is, Merton knew the differing paths of saints in journeying toward the Divine, but there was an improvisational streak in Merton. He broke through the barriers that are normally associated with being a monk. How else can a person explain how Merton, a monk in a monastery that prized silence, solitude, and lengthy prayer services, could correspond with people of other religions or no religion at all?

Despite never leaving the monastery in Kentucky until the final months of his life, Merton became and remains the best-known monk and monastic author of recent times. Perhaps it was Merton’s willingness to improvise in the spiritual life, rather than woodenly follow the path set by others, that gives readers that same freedom to improvise.

Nowhere in the writings of Merton that I’ve read does he instruct others to copy his way, to take his path. Perhaps that is why Merton has so many devoted readers who don’t identify as religious at all. Yet, I am sure that Merton’s honesty and candor have convinced tens of thousands of readers to see the spiritual life as a life that is more human, not less; more fulfilling, not less; and more challenging, not less.

New Year’s is a time of making resolutions, a time to think of improving our lives. If you have a spiritual friend who has become a guide for you, I encourage you to set aside more time in 2022 to be with that friend. Think of it as taking your soul to a spiritual gym. If you don’t have a spiritual guide, you might give Merton a chance. Thomas Merton is a lot of things, but the one thing he isn’t is boring.