148 - The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns

The Hidden Ground of Love:
The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious
Experience and Social Concerns
By Thomas Merton
New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985. 669 pp. $27.95.

Merton, Cistercian monk, author of over 40 books of autobiography, poetry, and essays on literature, society, and spirituality, was a major influence in the twentieth century renewal of contemplative spirituality. This volume presents his letters to a representative sampling of the over 2000 persons with whom he corresponded. Religious topics discussed include his own spirituality, the nature and future possibilities of monasticism, and study of the nature and importance for Western Christianity of Hinduism, Sufism, Buddhism, and Orthodoxy. Prime social concerns are civil rights, the Catholic peace movement, modern society's drift toward materialism, violence, and nuclear warfare. Editorial apparatus is somewhat problematical: indices of names and topics are too limited in scope; the volume lacks a table of contents; and ellipses abound without adequate explanation. Nonetheless, the collection is of great value, both for the primary information provided on Merton's development as a literary and religious figure, and for its commentary on crucial ethical and spiritual issues of midtwentieth century America.

Dewey Weiss Kramer
DeKalb College
Atlanta, Ga.