The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals

If you like your saints packaged without the messiness of an actual error-filled life, this book is not for you. If, however, you want a glimpse inside the mind and spirit of a splendid writer and thinker who tried live his life as honestly as he could as a journey into God, then this is a grace-filled beauty. Subtitled "His Life from His Journals," these selections--dating from 1939 (before he entered the monastery) to 1968 (within days of his death)--remind us how much of Merton's life unfolded precisely in and through his own writing--how he made himself through his writing. As he says, "it seems to me that writing, far from being an obstacle to spiritual perfection in my own life, has become one of the conditions on which my perfection will depend." Merton contends that writing--honest writing--is his way to move more and more deeply into the truth. In these very honest pages, covering everything from his meeting with the Dalai Lama to his experience of falling in love (25 years after entering the monastery), Truth unfolds itself through the act of writing. These pages are a thread into the center of that labyrinth, which is where he meets his God. Now we're invited along for the ride. --Doug Thorpe