Can You Trust Thomas Merton?

Anthony E. Clark. "Can You Trust Thomas Merton?" Catholic Answers Magazine

I recently found a used copy of Thomas Merton's "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" (1968) and then today accidentally found this article. I appreciate the overview it provides while warning the reader that Merton's "commitment to orthodox Catholicism appears suspiciously attenuated by the end of his life."

Change that to the orthodox Christianity and it is an apt description of me. While not comparing myself to Merton, his description of Merton resonates with me; "He writes as if his Christianity and his Buddhism had already become enmeshed into a new hybrid religion..."

I think a lot about how I would succinctly describe the current state of my spiritual journey. I have written about it here several times and often start articles in my head or as a draft. No one is asking me but I just want to be ready to not stammer but to clearly explain the way I see myself in life's journey.

I am glad to get this short entry down. Ironically, I found the article while writing a congregational prayer using some material from Merton. Some would be quite surprized that this congregational leader's  commitment to orthodox Christianity is attenuated.

I haven't had time to read the whole article and I haven't had a chance to renew my familiarity with Merton's book. I am greatly encouraged to delve back into Merton such as this tempting passage from the article;

Thomas Merton was more of a spiritual seeker rather than a spiritual settler. His ideas evolve and change often, and his immersion into Eastern religion often appears more like replacement than rapprochement. Merton’s intellectual and physical pilgrimage to Asia was, as he suggests, at least ostensibly an attempt to deepen and supplement his own religious life. He writes that "we have now reached a stage (long overdue) of religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to Christian and Western monastic commitment, and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist discipline and experience" (Asian Journal, xxiii). He continues to assert that the Western Church is in need of such a Buddhist influence to be improved, to help the Church in its "long overdue" renewal.