Thomas Merton
Robert Waldrop, in an email from the The Caelum Et Terra Email Discussion list, reminded me that yesterday was the 36th anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton. Mr. Waldrop titled his message "Thomas Merton and my journey to Catholicism."
Thomas Merton was also instrumental in my journey to Catholicism. My first encounter with Thomas Merton was his Zen and the Birds of Appetite, which I read as a high school student when, disillusioned with my Lutheran church, I thought I might be interested in Buddhism. I wasn't, and I never finished the book.
Later, when I was working in a non-profit organization (El Buen Amigo) and doing volunteer work with refugees and my focus was more on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's No Man Is an Island gave me a deeper appreciation of the truth of Catholic Social Teaching.
Finally, his spiritual autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, one of the last books I read before deciding to become Catholic, was, with the works of Karl Adam and John Henry Cardinal Newman listed on my sidebar, one of the books that convinced me of the truth of the Catholic Church.
Robert Waldrop, in an email from the The Caelum Et Terra Email Discussion list, reminded me that yesterday was the 36th anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton. Mr. Waldrop titled his message "Thomas Merton and my journey to Catholicism."
Thomas Merton was also instrumental in my journey to Catholicism. My first encounter with Thomas Merton was his Zen and the Birds of Appetite, which I read as a high school student when, disillusioned with my Lutheran church, I thought I might be interested in Buddhism. I wasn't, and I never finished the book.
Later, when I was working in a non-profit organization (El Buen Amigo) and doing volunteer work with refugees and my focus was more on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's No Man Is an Island gave me a deeper appreciation of the truth of Catholic Social Teaching.
Finally, his spiritual autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, one of the last books I read before deciding to become Catholic, was, with the works of Karl Adam and John Henry Cardinal Newman listed on my sidebar, one of the books that convinced me of the truth of the Catholic Church.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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