Of course, it is a wonderful conversion
story. However, there was nothing in it for me, nothing I could take as an
insight, advice, etc. This contrasts one hundred and eighty degrees with his
other writings. Merton's writings that grabbed me were his essays on social issues and comments on the same
in his journals. Admittedly, some of it is dated today, about social justice
issues that were current back then or are settled now. Overall, I found Merton
to be somewhat optimistic about humankind and society, in hindsight, more
optimist than what was called for. But to be fair, I think his optimism is
typical/expected from a person of his intelligence and talent, from the time
period in which he was educated and lived. And I suspect the optimism is what
society and the church needed at the time. When I was in my twenties, I read
every book of Merton's that I could find in bookstores. He had an enormous
influence on my thinking/spirituality/attitudes, for which I am grateful.
I see Thomas Merton and Jack Kerouac as
contemporary soul brothers of a sort but ones who chose radically different
lifestyles from each other. (with Kerouac failing in his spiritual journey).
Merton and Kerouac attended Columbia U. and shared certain professors, most especially, the legendary
English professor Mark Van Doren, mentioned in Seven Story Mountain. One quirky
reason the I read/liked Seven Story Mountain is that Merton (and Kerouac) were
contemporaries of my father. Without going into details, the beliefs and
attitudes of my father, my uncles, and all of their friends--working-class guys
from the neighborhoods of NYC who served in WWII--were all that I knew when I
was growing up. As a young adolescent/adult, the discovery of people of my
father's generation who thought so radically different from them was radically
mind-opening.
