Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Merton’s reply was the most helpful letter I’ve ever received:
Dear Jim,
Thanks for the letter and for the awful, and illuminating, enclosure [about the civilian casualties in Vietnam]. I can well understand your sense of desperation. And the “bleak mood.” And also I am glad that you wrote about it. As you say, there are no clear answers, and you ca... See more
Dear Jim,
Thanks for the letter and for the awful, and illuminating, enclosure [about the civilian casualties in Vietnam]. I can well understand your sense of desperation. And the “bleak mood.” And also I am glad that you wrote about it. As you say, there are no clear answers, and you ca... See more
Thomas Merton’s Letter to a Young Activist – Jim and Nancy Forest
PEOPLE who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of
... See moreThomas Merton • New Seeds of Contemplation
Here in italics is “Letter to a Young Activist” as published in The Catholic Worker interspersed with my own commentary:
What a challenge that is . Any action one embarks on is undertaken with the hope of positive, tangible results. One must have hope that what you do will have an impact. But to the extent you de... See more
Do not depend on the hope of results.
What a challenge that is . Any action one embarks on is undertaken with the hope of positive, tangible results. One must have hope that what you do will have an impact. But to the extent you de... See more
Thomas Merton’s Letter to a Young Activist – Jim and Nancy Forest
I MUST look for my identity, somehow, not only in God but in other men.
I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being.