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Rating: 
Summary: Silence is enough.
Review: Before becoming a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton "loved books, women, ideas, art, jazz, hard drink, cigarettes, argument, and having his opinions heard" (p. x). At age 26, however, he abandoned that life for a life of prayer, silence, and anonymity "from the world's one thousand and one interesting things" (p. x). He ended his wanderlust by travelling instead the inner geography of his heart and soul. This collection of 183 prayers is the result of his twenty-seven-year journey as a monk at Gethsemany."This book is a partial harvest from over four hundred prayers collected from Merton's published and unpublished works" (p. xvii). Most of the prayers here are derived from Father Merton's THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE and ENTERING THE SILENCE. (I have given this book four stars only when measured against his NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION, and these earlier books.) In his prayers, we find Merton entrusting himself "completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods, and hills, or sea, or desert," his heart on fire, as he quietly searches for salvation. "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going," he prays. "I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end" (p. vii). Although this may not be Father Merton's best book, it offers us the quiet prayers of a humble monk. Those prayers may be experienced as a powerful antidote to the troubling events unfolding in the world today. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Silence is enough.
Review: Before becoming a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton "loved books, women, ideas, art, jazz, hard drink, cigarettes, argument, and having his opinions heard" (p. x). At age 26, however, he abandoned that life for a life of prayer, silence, and anonymity "from the world's one thousand and one interesting things" (p. x). He ended his wanderlust by travelling instead the inner geography of his heart and soul. This collection of 183 prayers is the result of his twenty-seven-year journey as a monk at Gethsemany. "This book is a partial harvest from over four hundred prayers collected from Merton's published and unpublished works" (p. xvii). Most of the prayers here are derived from Father Merton's THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE and ENTERING THE SILENCE. (I have given this book four stars only when measured against his NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION, and these earlier books.) In his prayers, we find Merton entrusting himself "completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods, and hills, or sea, or desert," his heart on fire, as he quietly searches for salvation. "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going," he prays. "I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end" (p. vii). Although this may not be Father Merton's best book, it offers us the quiet prayers of a humble monk. Those prayers may be experienced as a powerful antidote to the troubling events unfolding in the world today. G. Merritt
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