The Merton Annual Studies in Culture, Spirituality and Social Concerns Vol 17

Edited by Victor A. Kramer

The Merton Annual began in 1998 as a vehicle for publishing extended monographs related to Thomas Merton, including his contributions and letters; his monastic, ecumenical, and social concerns; demonstrating his importance as a writer, artist, and monk. The scholarly essays presented in this latest volume reveal Merton’s developing global concerns and his disappointment with the destructive forces of certain cultures. An excerpt from his previously unpublished manuscript “Peace and the Post Christian Era” is also included.

Thomas Merton was truly a renaissance man and the wide ranging scholarship on MertonӒs life and thought published in The Merton Annual witnesses eloquently to this. It is truly as multifaceted as Thomas Merton himself. Ԗ Dr. Paul M Pearson. Director and Archivist, Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University
Thomas Merton, monk and author, has entered into legend.  The Merton Annual, with its blend of scholarship, witness, interpretation, and review, embodies the need to engage with Merton in his singularity, not as a legend but as a seeker and prophet of our time with whom the grand, precise dialogue continues.Ӕ  Roger Lipsey, author of The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art                 (Dover Books, reissued 2004)

֓Marvelous! The essay included in this volume that explains the Sanskrit terms Madhyamika and Dharmakayaused by Merton to describe his דenlightenment just days before his death which ԓconfirms and consoles the pilgrim and the reader with the fulfillment of Mertons intense longing…Ҕ  Gray Henry, Publisher of the Fons Vitae Merton Series (Merton and Sufism; Merton and Hesychasm; Merton and Judaism; and Merton and Buddhism)

֓These scholarly essays reveal Mertons developing global concerns. They also show his definite disappointment with cultures which are destructive of the particulars of any place, or person҅ It is also especially appropriate that the unpublished Merton manuscript included here should be an excerpt from his Peace in the Post-Christian Era. Truly, Mertons love for God made it imperative that he think as widely as possible, indeed globally.  Җ Victor A. Kramer, A Founding Editor of The Merton Annual
A note on the cover illustration:  Calligraphic drawing by Thomas Merton, dating to the 1960s, in the collection of the Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY.  Reflecting Merton’s search in visual art for signs that are true to Christian contemplative experience yet free of restrictive convention, the image suggests a reimagining of levels of inwardness in the human being through a primordial sign that recalls both early Chinese pictographs and tribal art.

Victor Kramer is the founding editor of The Merton Annual, and a coeditor of The Complete Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume Four. He has been engaged in Merton-related studies for 30 years. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.

Fons Vitae
Price: $19.95
Category: Religion & Spirituality, Thomas Merton
Pages: 380
Book Type: Paper
Size: 6 x 9
ISBN: 1887752773