{"id":5545,"date":"2011-01-26T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2011-01-26T01:00:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T07:00:02","slug":"a-personal-perspective-on-thomas-merton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/26\/a-personal-perspective-on-thomas-merton\/","title":{"rendered":"A Personal Perspective on Thomas Merton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"
Randy De Trinis as a young novice at the Abbey of Gethsemani<\/figcaption><\/figure>I know I had promised you that we would\u00a0return to Turkey today, but I can\u2019t resist a follow-up to my essay about\u00a0Thomas Merton.\u00a0 After it was posted,\u00a0I received a most interesting link from a reader, Randy De Trinis, who in the late 1950s lived as a monk at Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.\u00a0 While there he was fortunate to know Thomas Merton, and his recollections of his spiritual journey and his interactions with Merton are moving and fascinating (see Thomas Merton and the Quest<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you were speaking with [Merton] you felt as if you were the most important person in his life and that his honesty and good will sprang from the depths of his soul,\u201d writes Randy.\u00a0 His blog\u2013which contains material he wrote for the journal of the International Thomas Merton Society\u2013provides personal reflections on\u00a0one of the most intriguing men of the twentieth century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s full of wonderful,\u00a0telling details.\u00a0 One\u00a0recollection, for example, is of the two of them meeting together when\u00a0Merton served as Novice Master.\u00a0 While\u00a0they would\u00a0talk of spiritual matters,\u00a0they also would\u00a0often reminisce about life in New York City, and the two had great\u00a0fun telling stories.\u00a0 \u201cSome of the novices [told] me that they used to sit around near Louie\u2019s office just to hear the laughter when we were having our time together,\u201d recalls Randy.\u00a0 (You may recall that Merton was known as Father Louis within the monastery walls.)<\/p>\n

He continues:\u00a0 \u201cAs far as I know, not too many avatars roam the earth, but this amazing man was surely a sign of the abundance and wonder of the Other.\u00a0\u00a0I am astounded that I was given the great gift to have met him and listened to him. He pointed ever toward the truth and the need for understanding, compassion and love in the quest for meaning in our short lives. We have all been made richer having had him with us in this insane and wonderful universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank you, Randy, for sharing your story with the larger world (I especially love the letter Merton wrote to you about the library books).<\/p>\n

Perhaps my favorite line of the piece are these words written to Randy by Merton:\u00a0 \u201cBe humble enough to take anything good from anybody even if it is far short of perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I had promised you that we would\u00a0return to Turkey today, but I can\u2019t resist a follow-up to my essay about\u00a0Thomas Merton.\u00a0 After it was posted,\u00a0I received a most interesting link from a reader, Randy De Trinis, who in the late 1950s lived as a monk at Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.\u00a0 While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,152],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-5545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-writers","category-thomas-merton","tag-abbey-of-gethsemani"],"yoast_head":"\nA Personal Perspective on Thomas Merton<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I know I had promised you that we would\u00a0return to Turkey today, but I can't resist a follow-up to my essay about\u00a0Thomas Merton.\u00a0 After it was posted,\u00a0I\" 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