The One Thing That Is Important

Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. I’ve been imagining coming up with a class in which we’d explore Chris Isherwood, Ram Dass, and especially  The Gospel of Sri…

“Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”

Dear Friends, I invite you to a second “Merton Hour” to consider Thomas Merton’s short intervention on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. We will read together “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” discuss in…

A Merton Hour

Please join us for a “Merton Hour” for thoughtful discussions about the impact Thomas Merton and his writings have had on us and the world we live in. On Sunday 20 February Ben Burkemper will…

Righteous, Remorseful Jews

As my 61st birthday approaches, I’ve noticed that I have recently been going back to authors and works I read many years ago.  For example, I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, William D. Miller’s…

Merton’s Journal

Calcutta is shocking because it is all of a sudden a totally different kind of madness,    the reverse of that other madness, the mad rationality of affluence and overpopulation. America seems to make sense,…

Political Holiness

Pedro Casaldáliga & José-Maria Vigil, Political Holiness: A Spirituality of Liberation Those who struggle for utopia, for radical change, saints marked by the liberating spirit, are all of a piece; they carry faithfulness from the…