[Magdalen] Spending Time With Merton

[Scott Knitter]

Mike, thanks very much for this recommendation...I will find this and read
it!

Interesting to find out via the Note to Readers and the Preface of my
edition of 7SM that he fathered a child while at Clare College, Cambridge,
and the mother and child perished in a German bombing of London. His abbot
made him leave that out of his book, so his path takes a rather abrupt move
over to the USA to attend Columbia U instead. I had wondered why he was
suddenly being advised that a career in the UK foreign service was not
likely.

I think I'll start No Man Is an Island today in addition to packing for my
short trip to Mom's in Michigan. Glad to be driving, so the Google Maps
voice can direct me around any jammed expressways.

On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:11 AM M J _Mike_ Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

> I used to have the vast majority of Merton's writings.  So much was sadly
> let go of long ago.
>
> But I, of course, kept his SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN.  And, -- which I highly
> recommend, Scott, if you haven't already read/got it, -- Michael Mott's THE
> SEVEN MOUNTAINS OF THOMAS MERTON (1984; republished in 1993 "with a new
> afterword by the author" (Harvest Book/Harcourt Brace & Company), the
> official biography as countenanced by the Thomas Merton Legacy Trust, with
> access to material both published and unpublished afforded only the said
> official biographer, -- is probably well worth the while.  As per the
> Washington Post Book World on the back cover, "the real drama [begins where
> Merton's own bestselling 1948 autobiography leaves off]."  I read only a
> bit of it aeons ago, so can't speak too knowingly about it, but I do
> remember it being quite good, as far as I got, and recall.
>
> Maybe I need to read SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN again.  "[O]ppressive grayness"
> takes many forms, both inside, and out.  Thanks for the reminding "Merton
> nudge".
>
> :-)
>
> >>>I couldn't face the oppressive grayness outside today, so I spent the
> afternoon indoors with Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. Almost
> finished.
>
> An essential read that is helping inspire me...I've needed to read
> someone's fervent commitment to the faith, as it's felt like a hobby lately
> rather than an understanding of How Things Are. Very helpful.
>
> He sure didn't have time for non-RC Christians, though, did he? His
> experience of the C of E was not the best..."a class cult." Not surprising,
> as he had experienced the public boys' school variety of chapel services,
> mainly. But I sort of have to read around his condescension toward
> Anglicans and Old Catholics (he had a common bad impression of that,
> too...a man who had been an archbishop in such a "schismatic" sect). I
> suppose he's saying what he should say as an RC.
>
> Needed to reread "Mountain" before delving into No Man Is an Island and New
> Seeds of Contemplation. I need his help.<<<
>
> M J (Mike) Logsdon.
>
> "Aaugh[.]" -- Charles Brown.
> "Avoid dull needles and use a soft cloth." -- E Kovacs.
> "Because that's the kind of guy, I'm." -- C Reiner, "Your Show of Shows",
> skit: "From Here to Obscurity".
>


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA