Bøger af Thomas Merton

First published in 2003 and now available in paperback to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Thomas Merton's birth, When the Trees Say Nothing has sold more than 60,000 copies and continually inspires readers with its unique collection of Merton's luminous writings on nature, arranged for reflection and meditation.Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, author, poet, social commentator, and perhaps the most influential and widely published spiritual writer of the twentieth century. In When the Trees Say Nothing, editor Kathleen Deignan sheds new light on Merton by focusing on a neglected theme of his writing: the natural world as a manifestation of the divine.Drawing from Merton's voluminous writing on nature, Deignan has thematically assembled a collection of lucid, poetic reflections. Chapters on the four elements, the seasons, the Earth and its creatures, and the sun, moon, and stars provide brief passages from his diverse works that reveal the presence of God in creation.

"Zen enriches no one," Thomas Merton provocatively writes in his opening statement to Zen and the Birds of Appetite-one of the last books to be published before his death in 1968. "There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while... but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey." This gets at the humor, paradox, and joy that one feels in Merton's discoveries of Zen during the last years of his life, a joy very much present in this collection of essays. Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the reader a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith in these pages; rather one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

This is a new release of the original 1950 edition.

In this third volume of papers from Thomas Merton¿s conferences during his decade (1955-1965) as novice master at the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani, his insight into the liturgical pattern of the Christian year and beyond is presented in fresh detail. Merton¿s own commitment to this central dimension of Christian life is clear, and nowhere more so than in his work introducing students to the patterns that would mark their lives as monks.Though dating from the period just before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, Merton's commentaries remain pertinent. The thoroughly annotated text is preceded by an extensive introduction situating this material in the context of Merton's lifelong writing on liturgy. Moreover, as his former student Br. Paul Quenon notes in his foreword, this context is one deeply rooted in Merton¿s understanding of Scripture. ¿These notes . . . take us into one man's lifetime of reflection and seasoned experience of the Church Year.¿

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

In Faith and Violence, Thomas Merton offers concrete and pungent social criticisms grounded in prophetic faith about such issues as Vietnam, racism, violence, and war.

Previously unpublished material from world-renowned Trappist monk and author, Thomas Merton, featuring the final conference talks given in the United States before his untimely death. In May and October of 1968, Thomas Merton offered two extended conferences at Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey, a Cistercian women's community in Northern California. Comprising over twenty-six hours of previously unpublished material, Thomas Merton in California covers a variety of topics including ecology and consciousness, yoga and Hinduism, Native American ritual and rites of passage, Sufi spirituality, and inter-religious dialogue, along with extended discussions on prayer and the contemplative life. The material presented in these talks reveals Merton's wide-ranging intellectual and spiritual pursuits in the final year of his life, and fills a long-standing lacuna around Merton's visits to Redwoods Monastery, forming a necessary bridge to the Asian journey that was to come. Practical and applicable, as well as searching and inspired, Thomas Merton in California is essential for Merton readers and scholars, and all those interested in deepening their spiritual lives.

"Kontemplasjon er det høyeste uttrykket for menneskets intellektuelle og spirituelle liv. Det er selve livet: helt våkent, helt aktivt, helt levende. Det er åndelig undring. Det er umiddelbar ærefrykt for livets hellighet, for væren." (kap 1. Hva er kontemplasjon?) FRIHETENS FRØ henvender seg til alle åndelig søkende, og “innbyr til en reise mot noe som er så stort og annerledes at våre forestillinger ikke strekker til”, som Jan Schumacher skriver i forordet. Veien går gjennom vårt sanne selv og erfaringen av Gud som kjærlighet og treenighet, til den store, kosmiske dansen. Boken er et av Mertons mest kjente verker, og et betydelig bidrag til den katolske visdomslitteraturen i fotsporene til Johannes av Korset og middelalderens mystikere. Thomas Merton (1915-1968) var katolikk og munk ved cistercienserklosteret Gethsemani i Kentucky, USA, og han regnes som en av de betydeligste amerikanske tenkerne og forfatterne i det 20. århundret. Hans selvbiografi Seven Story Mountain var et forbilde for beat-generasjonen og har blitt en elsket klassiker. Til tross for sin avskjermede klostertilværelse var Merton dypt engasjert i kampen mot Vietnam-krigen og for borgerrettighetsbevegelsen. Gjennom sitt virke førte han en utstrakt korrespondanse med samtidens religiøse ledere, noe som åpnet for en rik utveksling mellom de ulike kontemplative tradisjonene. Hos Merton finner vi en åpen, udogmatisk kristendom som konsentrerer seg om menneskets indre liv og alle tings hellighet.

Thomas Merton presented numerous sets of conferences during his decade (1955-1965) as novice master at the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani. The two courses included in this volume - a thorough examination of the book of Genesis that began in mid-1956 and concluded on the Feast of Pentecost in 1957, and a series of classes on the book of Exodus from 1957 and 1958 - are here presented for the first time in a critical edition accompanied by extensive annotation and a comprehensive introduction. These courses comprise the only major surviving teaching notes on particular books of Scripture dating from the years when Merton was in charge of the novitiate. They provide direct access to his views on the intellectual and spiritual contexts in which they should be understood. As biblical scholar Pauline Viviano writes in her preface, ¿this edition of Thomas Merton¿s class notes brings us into the workings of a great spiritual leader¿s mind as he reflects upon Scripture. . . . all who are on a spiritual journey can gain from his insights and the lessons he draws.¿

In "Bread in the Wilderness," Merton looks at the psalms as poetry; in this book he regards them as prayer. Guiding the reader through the more representative psalms, he explains why the Church also considers the psalms as the best way to praise God. According to Merton: "To put it very plainly, the Church loves the Psalms because in them she sings of her experience of God, of her union with the Incarnate Word, of her contemplation of God in the Mystery of Christ....If we really come to know and love the Psalms, we will enter into the Church's own experience of divine things. We will begin to know God as we ought.

Come into the Silence is an easy-to-use devotional for all those seeking peace, stillness, and solitude in a busy and noisy world. Part of the bestselling Great Spiritual Teachers series, this book invites you into the contemplative life through the words of Thomas Merton, one of the most popular spiritual masters of the twentieth century. In his journals, letters, and spiritual writings such as New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton explored the tension between the human longing for both connection and solitude. Merton, a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani, offered a model of contemplative life that allowed him to be deeply engaged with pressing issues of the time, including the nonviolent civil rights movement. Requiring only a few minutes each day, Come into the Silence helps you realize how God sees you and to embrace his divine vision of you and each person you encounter. This devotional also allows you to reflect deeply on the fundamental longings for meaning, belonging, and intimacy as well as the call to service and social justice in your life. Each book in the Great Spiritual Teachers series provides a month of daily readings from one of Christianity's most beloved spiritual guides. For each day there is a brief and accessible morning meditation drawn from the mystic's writings, a simple mantra for use throughout the day, and a night prayer to focus one's thoughts as the day ends. These easy-to-use books are the perfect prayer companion for busy people who want to root their spiritual practice in the solid ground of these great spiritual teachers.

Begun five years after he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, The Sign of Jonas is an extraordinary view of Merton's life in a Trappist monastery, and it serves also as a spiritual log recording the deep meaning and increasing sureness he felt in his vocation: the growth of a mind that finds in its contracted physical world new intellectual and spiritual dimensions.

Date of original copyright is 1948. "Introduction" and "Note to the reader" have copyright dates of 1998. "Foreword" has copright date of 2017.