What are Veeky Forums's thoughts of Thomas Merton? His Christian work and his work in the east.
What are Veeky Forums's thoughts of Thomas Merton? His Christian work and his work in the east
Hudson Parker
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Elijah Cook
A Saint of our age.
Blessed may he be and peace be upon him.
Thomas Cook
I tried reading The Seven Storey Mountain but I couldn't finish it because it was too boring.
Adrian Ward
His thoughts on eastern mysticism would probably not be acceptable under recent rulings by the Vatican and various bishops, but he can hardly be held responsible for things written after his death.
Of course many throughout church history have been interested in the Prisca theologia and other concepts, and have of course faced accusations of heresy based on this interest and their published work.
I do wonder if his interest in such things stems from an unfamiliarity of various Christian forms of mysticism which are often viewed with suspicion themselves.
John Moore
What would be found not acceptable?
Camden Sanders
He had pretty strong perennialist tendencies, and he may have been a Maryamiyya (spoopy perennialist cult founded by Frithjof Schuon).
Landon Stewart
>u will never be as photogenic as merton
Sebastian Kelly
...
Thomas Howard
I wouldn't find him perennialist but insofar as he finds the experience of mystics to be very real between different philosophical views in the world. Otherwise, I'd totally agree.
>that pic
>he did a speech on monastic perspectives on marxism
Now I'm quite interested in this.
If only we could have seen a world where he lived.
Jordan Cooper
It was either the US bishops conference or the Vatican who issued a advisement to avoid eastern meditation and the like and peruse Christian mysticism
Jacob Thompson
>Now I'm quite interested in this.
i think there's a clip of that on youtube
Alexander Hughes
Ah, I heard about that. Just a precaution against losing our Christian tradition in Christian circles due to the popularity of other traditions.
Samuel Robinson
Decent work in the east; absolute shit at being a Trappist monk. Nothing says stability and silence like being a minor globe-hopping celebrity. And let's not start on celibacy.
Owen Wright
>And let's not start on celibacy.
Give me the dirt, user.
Gabriel Butler
He absolutely had one bastard the Cistercians have tried to hid all references to and had at least one affair in the 60's when he stopped functioning as a proper monk.
Jackson Russell
Have you read his biography or something?
Owen Lopez
His son was well before becoming Catholic, let alone a monk. And there is no evidence at all that he broke his vow of celibacy. Though he did have someone who he was very infatuated with.
Luis Green
Only the Seven Storied Mountain. Parents were Catholic hippy types who were way into him and other types of syncretism, part of my teenaged angst rebellion was push-back on the mythos.
Lincoln Sanders
huffingtonpost.com
"We [M.] ate herring and ham (not very much eating!) and drank our wine and read poems and talked of ourselves and mostly made love and love and love for five hours.”
I know it's the Huffington post, but it's quotes from his letters.
Adam Green
>"We ate ... and drank our wine and read poems and talked of ourselves and most made love and love and love for five hours.... in the end we were getting rather sexy.... and ... Shortly after this episode, Merton wrote, "We got ourselves quite aroused sexually ... we are not safe with each other, and I am disturbed about our meeting out here alone"
The description of the scene mentions "making love" and then LATER mentions how it ended in sexual arousal. That would mean that the "making love" was not intercourse at all and so, as I said, he would have not broken his vow of celibacy.
Joshua Thomas
Sure; and none of that is white-washing from the Cistercians of Gethsemani who already edit his works to keep profiting from his estate to pay for their retirement now that they're dying out. He should have been part of the mass exodus from religious life that marked the late 60's but got special treatment because he was famous. Even if he didn't have sex he still had the emotional affair which in itself is a violation of the vow of celibacy.
Lucas Campbell
Monks do not retire so there is no retirement for them to be siphoning money to. Where you even got such an idea is beyond me. Further, the emotional affair isn't in violation of the vow of celibacy. It refers to remaining unmarried and abstinent.
>He should have been part of the mass exodus from religious life that marked the late 60's but got special treatment because he was famous.
What? What do you mean by this? Why "should" he have been?
Noah Butler