Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals
#OnThisDay quotes from the journals of Thomas Merton (1915-1968). Currently tweeting entries from 1958-1959. Tweets drop 8:05 ET. Curated by @gregorykhillis Kentucky, USA Joined November 2017-
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30 Aug 1959 - "Good long hour in the chapel with the Tabernacle open for exposition. In the end, with my mind empty, thought of seeing what would come spontaneously into it & surprisingly up welled not some subconscious image but Psalm 84, which I said slowly & thoughtfully."
25 Aug 1958 - "The grip the present has on me. That is the one thing that has grown most noticeably in the spiritual life - nothing much else has. The rest dims as it should. I am getting older. The reality of now - the unreality of all the rest."
22 Aug 1959 - "Had a fairly sane & sensible talk with Rev. Fr. yesterday about the business of my problems here & my desire for a more primitive, isolated, and simple life alone & away from the vanitas monastica of the community life."
20 Aug 1958 - "I am really a monk when I can let go completely of 'being a monk' (self-consciously) and I think I have let go of that long ago. Now I face the terror of being, by the same 'letting go' a Christian? And a writer and myself."
18 Aug 1959 - "What do I need? Leisure. Time to think. Time to look at the hills, at the horses in the distant pasture & at their beautiful brown color. I need something beyond my capacity to know. If I call it solitude, I mistake it. Silence, a primitive life."
17 Aug 1959 - "Another letter from Fr. [Jean] Danielou. It is definite and clear, and an intelligent, winning letter."
17 Aug 1958 - "Sounds of rain in the night - I lay in bed appalled by the weight of water falling upon the earth, it seemed, in a solid mass. Wonder what happened to the crops. Our tobacco is early because of all the rain & we shall start cutting tomorrow."
15 Aug 1959 - "Was in Louisville Thursday. Hated the town. It was hot & stupid. Hated all the advertisements, the interminable attempts to sell you something. Everywhere the world oppresses me with a sense of clutter & confusion."
22 June 1959 - "Yesterday — worked out a simple plan for a hermitage behind the sheep barn in the woods, but it is too silly. Only if no other way is possible will I take that one." A hermitage ended up getting built in 1961
22 June 1968 - "Wonderfully cool. Never saw such a June. Bright blue sky. Birds singing everywhere. Not a cloud. Sunlight falls on this page through the branches of the cedars outside the wall & is not oppressive, but pleasant, like the sun of May or October."
21 June 1959 - [continues to think about going to another monastery] "Summer solstice. And this vocation business is making me miserable. Lay awake last night thinking about it. Perhaps what is upsetting me is the fear of uncertainty."
16 June 1959 - [thinking about going to another monastery] "It is impossible to say what I ought to do. The situation is so vague & everything is uncertain...The more thought, the more silence, the more patience go into this - the better."
10 June 1958 - "Quiet morning - I am hebdomadary & sit in the cool garden, smelling honeysuckle & wet grass & earth, listening to crows, larks, bobwhite, doves, titmice, wrens, & sparrows. Seeds from the sycamore fall on this page. Dew shines on the sheepbarn roof."
9 June 1959 - "By rights, I really owe it to Dom James [the abbot] to propose a request to become a hermit in the woods."
7 June 1959 - "Saw Shakertown - the big old dormitories stood among the weeds in desolation. I cannot help seeing Shakertown in a very special light. There is a lot of Shakertown in Gethsemani. The two contemporary communities were born of the same Spirit."
2 June 1958 - "Bro. Clement came in with a cheese ad, again, and I worked on it, God forgive me."
29 May 1958 - "Finished Pasternak's Safe Conduct. A magnificent book, one of the great ones. I have thought several times of writing to Pasternak. How absurd - as if I could contemplate the writing of such a letter" Merton ended up writing to him & the two began a correspondence
27 May 1959 - [looking at a bull] "Thank God here is a living being and not a machine, something big & warm & alive & unpredictable, with fears & angers & appetites. And I was glad of all this & reassured by it because of the value that is in life itself."
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@Breen3M @MertonsJournals I think his point was the intentional community in the Kentucky wilderness built around faith.
Always write the letter. You never know what might happen.
29 May 1958 - "Finished Pasternak's Safe Conduct. A magnificent book, one of the great ones. I have thought several times of writing to Pasternak. How absurd - as if I could contemplate the writing of such a letter" Merton ended up writing to him & the two began a correspondence
Lol at the Marine recruiters in Kroger in full dress blues.
Merton meets Einstein. Leyendo The inner experience (1959):
17 Dec 1957 - "Beginning my first contacts with this beautiful mind & person who is Einstein. A great prophet of the dead Age of Liberalism - with the disconcerting kindness & innocence of the liberal, emerging from his political muddle into his little moment of clarity."
@MertonsJournals His were the first translations of the Desert Monastics I came across.
Just a selfie with my man, Fr. Louis. @bellarmineU @MertonDaily @MertonsJournals
Thrilled seeing upper-class student leaders and fall student athletes arrive to campus. It feels almost “normal.” At the same time, I cannot stress enough the importance of getting vaccinated. I want the “normal” or as close to normal to continue. #GetVaccinatedNow @bellarmineU
@MertonsJournals And by Communion you mean Holy Mass with the community and by Mass you mean your own private Mass?
@MertonsJournals Whom ever is posting these journal entries each day, I APPRECIATE YOU!!!
@MertonsJournals Have been reading along with Merton in Journal #7 these past months as we approach his trip to Asia and the events of Dec 10. I may now switch to the Asian Journal. Thanks for doing this!
@MertonsJournals Those were the nuns who taught at my elementary school. Holy Redeemer parish in the Archdiocese of Detroit @ArchofDet
My bro @DavidJMichael saw a wolf on the beach by that shrine to the little flower I Alaska and sent me a postcard about it. Good times.
September 23, 1968 - "I have no hesitation in saying Eyak Lake seemed perfect in many ways - for a place to live. Other ideas of Fr Llorente: Yakutat & a shrine (abandoned) of the Little Flower outside Juneau." #MertonsDeath50
In Advent 1946 - three years exactly before I was baptized, Merton wrote in his journal "I wish I knew how to begin to be grateful to God and to our Lady for bringing me here" That is almost all I can say today as I begin to leave @DioceseofDurham @MertonsJournals
Merton in the Bardo.
September 17, 1968 - "We took off an hour late [from Chicago], big plane full of children, heading for Anchorage, Tokyo and Seoul. Flew up slowly out of the dark into the brilliant light, this Bardo of pure sky." #MertonsDeath50
@MertonsJournals Awesome sauce! I’ve been reading along in his last journal since June. Thank you for doing this!
@MertonsJournals And we also know that he changed his mind about that later. But it is a very moving book. It changed my life, too; I even came to see why Merton changed his mind about the book.
Thomas Merton, music snob. x.com/mertonsjournal…
May 13, 1948 - "One of the Owensboro priests on retreat is supposed to have made some records of the choir singing the Conventual Mass (of the Octave) today. Waste of wax."
...As usual with the fast writing, there was an awful lot of mediocrity & bad stuff. x.com/mertonsjournal…
January 26, 1948 - "Proofs on The Seven Storey Mountain came, & there is a lot of it, & still 8,000 words to cut, but that won't be hard. I'll cut more...St Paul, help me out, sharpen my scissors! As usual with the fast writing, there was an awful lot of mediocrity & bad stuff."
@MertonsJournals A wonderfully humble New Years resolution. Take from me and give to others.
How dare you, Thomas Merton. ;) x.com/mertonsjournal…
Dec 16, 1947: "Yesterday Lord's Weary Castle by Robert Lowell came & it is terrific...Lowell is a *poet*. I'd like to write an article about him...Lowell is in some ways better than Hopkins."
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