Make Peace before the Sun Goes Down
The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and His Abbot, James Fox
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $17.99
-
- $17.99
Publisher Description
In the 1950s and ’60s, Thomas Merton, a monk of the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky, published a string of books that are among the most influential spiritual books of the twentieth century—including the mega–best seller The Seven-Storey Mountain. He was something of a rock star for a cloistered monk, and from his monastic cell he enjoyed a wide and lively correspondence with people from the worlds of religion, literature, and politics. During that period he also explored and wrote extensively on Buddhism, Sufism, art, and social action. The man to whom he owed obedience in the cloistered life was a much more traditional Catholic, his abbot, Dom James Fox. To say that these two men had a conflicted relationship would be an understatement, but the tension their differences in orientation brought actually led to creative results on both sides and to a kind of hard-won respect and love. Roger Lipsey’s portrait of this unusual relationship is compelling and moving; it shows Merton in the years his imagination was taking him far beyond the walls of the monastery, and eventually, literally to Asia.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While Merton's views of his abbot are well-documented in the former's prolific writings, Lipsey (Hammarskj ld: A Life) draws on lesser-known documents from the pen of Dom James Fox himself to "shape an interpretive history" of the two monks' nearly 20-year relationship at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Direct quotes are blended with keen analysis as the art historian and critic writes "not without pain and wonder" about their struggle. The abbot's kindnesses toward Merton, Lipsey reveals in sometimes horrific detail, were mixed with sustained attempts, often with Dom James's superiors and once with a cooperative psychiatrist, to control the brilliant, sometimes wayward writer and contemplative who achieved fame as soon as he began publishing his work in the 1940s. Lipsey's narrative lightens as Merton begins to transcend the limitations of his context, using its unresolvable contradictions to foster spiritual growth. While the author works to be fair to the "immensely capable" abbot and unstintingly explores Merton's convoluted participation in this complex relationship, he is clear about his discomfort with Dom James's willingness to cause Merton suffering. This skilled, sometimes moving, addition to Merton scholarship will appeal most to enthusiasts already familiar with the full biography of the world-famous spiritual writer and social activist.
