LEARNING TO LOVE: Exploring Solitude and Freedom. Copyright © 1997 by The Merton Legacy Trust. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST HARPERCOLLINS PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1998
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Merton, Thomas, 1915–1968.
Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom/Thomas Merton; edited by Christine M. Bochen. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The journals of Thomas Merton; v. 6)
ISBN 0-06-065484-8 (cloth)
ISBN 0-06-065485-6 (pbk.)
1. Merton, Thomas, 1915–1968—Diaries. 2. Trappists—United States—Diaries. 3. Catholic Church—United States—Clergy—Diaries. 4. Spiritual life—Catholic Church. I. Bochen, Christine M. II. Title. III. Series: Merton, Thomas, 1915–1968. Journals of Thomas Merton; v. 6.
BX4705.M542A3 1997
271'.12502—dc21
[B]
97–19840
04 05
EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-201666-9
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1 Linda Parsons [Sabbath] wrote to Thomas Merton in April 1965 after reading The Ascent to Truth. In their letters, they explored a host of common interests, such as religious experience, mysticism, Zen Buddhism and its relationship to Christianity. For Merton’s letters to Linda Parsons Sabbath, see The Hidden Ground of Love, edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1985), 516–33.
2 This book was published as Gethsemani: A Life of Praise (Trappist, KY: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1966).
3 Merton’s Faith and Violence (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968) was published in French, translated by Marie Tadié, in 1969. The articles he refers to are “Pacifism and Resistance in Simone Weil” and “Schema 13: An Open Letter to the American Hierarchy.”
4 “How It Is: Apologies to an Unbeliever” was eventually published in Harper’s magazine in November 1966.
5 Merton later revises this preface for publication in English – see his entry for April 14, 1966.
1 Parenthetically in the margin, Merton identified the student nurse as M.
2 “With the World in My Bloodstream,” is published in The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1977), 615–18.
3 See Thomas Merton, “Honorable Reader,” Reflections on My Work, edited by Robert E. Daggy (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 107–18. Merton revised, enlarged, and published this preface as “Love and Solitude” in Critic (November 1966); this final version also appears in Thomas Merton, Love and Living, edited by Naomi Burton Stone and Brother Patrick Hart (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), 15–24.
4 The “nook” was the burial place for the abbots.
5 “Seven Words” published in Prophetic Voices: Ideas and Words of Revolution, edited by Ned O’Gorman (New York: Random House, 1969).
6 Merton had begun to see a psychologist, Dr. James Wygal, in 1960 and they soon became friends.
7 “Is the World a Problem? Ambiguities in the Secular,” Commonweal 84 (3 June 1966): 305–9.
8 Merton appears to have added the parenthetical note later.
9 Letters designated “conscience matter” generally were not subject to the customary review of correspondence by the abbot or someone designated by him.
10 See “Purity,” reprinted in Thomas Merton’s Love and Living.
11 The poem, “Evening: Long Distance Call,” was published in Eighteen Poems (New York: New Directions, 1985).
12 Merton inserted this parenthetical remark later – perhaps on rereading the entry.
13 The first part of Merton’s poem, “Six Night Letters,” opens with the words “Every beautiful day / Is invention ….” See Eighteen Poems (New York: New Directions, 1985).
14 The text of “A Midsummer Diary” appears as the first appendix in this volume.
15 Eugenio Montale, Ossi di Seppia (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1948). The English translation is from The Bones of Cuttlefish, translated by Antonio Mazza (Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1983).
16 This is a reference to “Retrospect,” which Merton wrote between June 30 and July 8, 1966.
17 Merton’s introduction to John Wu’s The Golden Age of Zen appeared as “A Christian Looks at Zen” in Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), 33–58.
18 “Buddhism and the Modern World” was published by Cross Currents (Fall 1966). Reprinted in Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967), 281–88.
19 “Cancer Blues” – one of the Eighteen Poems.
20 The following letter to Fr. John Eudes Bamberger appears as a page of the journal.
21 The True Legendary Sound: The Poetry and Criticism of Edwin Muir” was first published in Sewanee Review 75 (Spring 1967). Reprinted in The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1982), 29–36.
22 Merton later inserted this parenthetical note.
23 English translation of Eugenio Montale’s Mottetti: Poems of Love from The Motets of Eugenio Montale, translated by Dana Gioia (St. Paul, MN: Gray Wolf Press, 1990).
24 This poem by René Char, entitled “Un Oiseau …,” appeared in Fureur et mystère (Paris: Gallimard, 1948). Translated by Beverly Evans.
25 Another of the Eighteen Poems.
26 “For the Spanish Poet Miguel Hernandez” was published in Sewanee Review 74 (Autumn 1966). “Albert Camus and the Catholic Church” appeared in Catholic Worker 33 (December 1966).
27 Compare this with the entry of May 11, 1967: “My intention is that, though it may eventually be published, this Journal should be kept under wraps for twenty-five years after my death.”
1 For Merton’s notes on Julien Green’s Chaque homme dans sa nuit, see “To Each His Darkness,” published in Raids on the Unspeakable (New York: New Directions, 1966), 27–33. For Merton’s letter responding to Green, see The Courage for Truth, edited by Christine M. Bochen (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993), 273–74.
2 “Three Saviors in Camus: Lucidity and the Absurd,” first published in Thought, Spring 1968, was reprinted in The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1981), 275–91.
3 “Edifying Cables” was Merton’s working title for a book of poetry published as Cables to the Ace (New York: New Directions, 1968).
4 Merton’s review, “Wilderness and Paradise: Two Recent Studies,” appeared in Cistercian Studies 2 (1967): 83–89.
5 Merton’s letter to this woman, Katherine Champney, is published in Thomas Merton, Witne
ss to Freedom, edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), 327–29.
6 “Day of a Stranger” appeared in Hudson Review, vol. 20 (Summer 1967).
1 “The Black Revolution: Letters to a White Liberal” in Ramparts 2 (Christmas 1963), 4–23; see also Seeds of Destruction (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964). The essay has been reprinted in Thomas Merton, Passion for Peace: The Social Essays, edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 154–88.
2 “Baptism in the Forest: Wisdom and Initiation in William Faulkner,” in George Panichas, ed., Mansions of the Spirit: Essays in Religion and Literature (New York: Hawthorn, 1967), 19–44. See also The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, ed. Bro. Patrick Hart (New York: New Directions, 1981), 92–116.
3 Michele Murray wrote two pieces on Merton in the National Catholic Reporter (December 21, 1966): a book review, “Life Viewed Too Facilely,” and “Thomas Merton, the Public Monk.” Merton replied with “Thomas Merton Replies to a Perceptive Critic” (January 18, 1967).
4 Merton’s “Foreword to Chakravarty’s ‘Marcel and Buddha: A Metaphysics of Enlightenment” was published in the Journal of Religious Thought 24, no. 1 (1967–68). It was reprinted in Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968).
5 “Thomas Merton’s Graph Evaluating His Own Books 1967” appears as Appendix 2 in “Honorable Reader.”
6 “The Self of Modern Man and the New Christian Consciousness” appeared in the R. M. Bucke Memorial Society newsletter (April 2, 1967).
7 “Ishi: A Meditation,” Catholic Worker (March 1967).
8 For Merton’s letters to Louis Zukofsky, see The Courage for Truth.
9 See Merton’s later letter to John Hunt in Witness to Freedom, 329–30.
10 Hesychasm names the practice of inner stillness and quiet and also refers to the use of the “Jesus Prayer.”
11 English translations of Albert Camus’s The Plague, here and below, are from Stuart Gilbert’s translation (New York: Knopf, 1948).
12 “The Meaning of Malcolm X,” Continuum (Summer 1967), 432–35.
13 St. Paul of Thebes, an early Christian hermit who died ca. 340.
14 The booklet is entitled Albert Camus’ The Plague (New York: Seabury Press, 1968). It is reprinted as “The Plague of Albert Camus: A Commentary and Introduction” in The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, edited by Brother Patrick Hart (New York: New Directions, 1982), 181–217.
15 Redeeming the Time was the abridged and altered British edition of Seeds of Destruction (London: Burns & Oates, 1966).
16 Epikeia literally means “act of justice,” observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law for the sake of the common good.
17 Merton wrote two letters in response to Dom Decroix’s request: one on August 21 and another on August 22, 1967. See Thomas Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love, edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985), 154–59.
18 This was published as He Is Risen! (Niles, IL: Argus Communication, 1975).
19 The preface appears in “Honorable Reader,” 127–36.
1 List of topics for “Seven Words.” Two essays, “Purity” and “Death,” were published in Prophetic Voices: Ideas and Words on Revolution, edited by Ned O’Gorman (New York: Random House, 1969). Merton’s reflections on all seven words are published in Love and Living, edited by Naomi Burton Stone and Brother Patrick Hart (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979).
2 This “to do” list is marked in several ways – some items are crossed out, some are marked with a slash in the left margin, still others are checked off on the left. Finally the whole list is crossed off.
3 The community in Nicaragua established by Ernesto Cardenal.
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