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Thomas Merton was born at Prades, France, on the 31st of January, in 1915.<\/p>\n
His father Owen was a New Zelander, his mother Ruth, an American. They\u2019d met while each was studying art in Paris.<\/p>\n
Thomas was baptized into the Church of England. representing his father\u2019s Anglican faith.<\/p>\n
With the onset of the First World War the family relocated to the States. His brother, John Paul was born shortly after. Their mother died when Merton was six. A couple of years later he was sent to a boarding school in France, then after a year or so, his father called him back and the family lived in England.<\/p>\n
At eighteen Thomas began at Cambridge, but left. Then at twenty-one he entered Columbia as a sophomore. In 1938 he graduated with a degree in English.<\/p>\n
Merton found himself spiritually at sea. And deeply concerned with those ancient matters of the heart. One mentor suggested he read Augustine\u2019s Confessions<\/em>. Another, a Hindu monk, Mahanambrata Brahmachari<\/a>, encouraged him to look deeply into the Christian spiritual tradition. He did. And in 1939 Thomas Merton was re-baptized a Roman Catholic. Late in 1941, he entered the Abbey of Gethsemani,<\/a>\u00a0in Bardstown, Kentucky.<\/p>\n The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n In 2013 the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly was held in Louisville. And so for me that UU convention became a Thomas Merton pilgrimage. I drove out to the Abbey of Gethsemani twice, once with my friend and colleague Erik Wikstrom, and once on my own. When Erik and I were there we brought flowers for Father Merton\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n It was my first Merton pilgrimage, although it would not be my last<\/a>.<\/p>\n The other spot for me in that 2013 pilgrimage, and in some ways more compelling was right in downtown Louisville, where there\u2019s a marker. As far as I know the only state sanctioned marker that notes someone\u2019s spiritual awakening, what in my spirituality would be called a kensho. He describes that moment in several places. Here\u2019s the most complete of the accounts.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.\u2026This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: \u2018Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.\u2019 It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: \u2026A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. They are not \u2018they\u2019 but my own self. There are no strangers! Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed\u2026I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n If that were all, I\u2019d be impressed.<\/p>\n But of course there\u2019s more, a lot.<\/p>\n Thomas Merton was author of the best selling spiritual memoir Seven Storey Mountain<\/a>, followed by many other books. And through these writings the cloistered Merton enthralled two generations of spiritual seekers.<\/p>\n His influence would extend well beyond his church. Certainly he deeply influenced me.<\/p>\n The way he worked for me was how he was able to bridge traditions, always seeking the deeper truth of things. He gave his life to the spiritual quest, endlessly investigating his own tradition, but then from the depths looking across and seeing other paths that also opened hearts.<\/p>\n Of these I think the one that most captured his heart was Buddhism<\/a>.<\/p>\n And for me, probably his little volume Wisdom of the Desert<\/a>, was most important. Merton\u2019s curation of the teachings of those fourth and fifth century Egyptian desert nuns and monks led to a collection of very Zen-like stories that instantly caught my imagination, and, frankly, continues to teach me. Merton\u2019s particular selection, chosen as it was, by a Christian mystic and social justice activist who had a deep interest in the world\u2019s religions, particularly Zen Buddhism<\/a>, emphasized and perhaps over-emphasized the stories that do look so similar across ages and religions. But, my goodness, they really do.<\/p>\n In 1968 that Father Merton, who had been attending an interfaith monastic conference in Bankok, Thailand, stepped out of his bath and apparently reached and touched an electric fan, was shocked and suffered a fatal heart attack. By coincidence it was the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance into Gethsemane Abbey.<\/p>\n His life and the many blessings of that life deserves celebrating.<\/p>\n So. Happy birthday, Thomas Merton.<\/p>\n And, thank you!<\/p>\n Endless bows\u2026<\/p>\n