I wrote earlier today in my other, Lion Lamb, blog about the anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. Merton was a hermit and mystic who came to an untimely end during a trip to Thailand where he met with a young Dalai Lama.
It was earlier in 1968, the same year he died, that Merton left Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky, to search out a potential new hermitage amongst the giant trees at Redwoods Monastery in California. While visiting the relatively new Redwoods he observed
Everything, from the big ferns as the base of the trees, the dense undergrowth, the long enormous shafts towering endlessly in shadow penetrated here and there by light...The worshipful cold spring spring light on the sandbanks of Eel River, the immense silent redwoods. Like a cathedral...
There is a similar sense of reverence and awe in his nature journals from Gethsemani, collected beautifully by Kathleen Deignan in When the Trees Say Nothing. There is another book, Thomas Merton: The Environmental Visionary by Monica Weis, which I value as well
If this aspect of Merton's varied life intrigues you, there is an excellent article by Fred Bahnson in Emergence Magazine with the title, On the Road With Thomas Merton.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
It was in this article that I discovered that Merton also spent time at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico. I've been to Christ in the Desert a couple of times, driving the long, unpaved and slippery road in January a number of years ago. While it was a drive bordering on holy terror, it was also a visit of holy awe and holy because of the solitude and amazing setting.
I've admired Merton for decades but its been in latter years that I've come to appreciate his love for Creation, He will be remembered for many things and being a committed Groundling should be at the forefront of his legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment