Thomas Merton's Gethsemani: Landscapes of Paradise - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813123488 ISBN 13: 9780813123486

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2005

Synopsis

For twenty-seven years, renowned and beloved monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) belonged to Our Lady of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery established in 1848 amid the hills and valleys near Bardstown, Kentucky. In Thomas Merton's Gethsemani, dramatic black-and-white photographs by Harry L. Hinkle and artful text by Merton scholar Monica Weis converge in a unique experience for lovers of Merton.

Hinkle was allowed unprecedented access to many areas inside the monastery and on its grounds that are generally restricted. His photographs invite the reader to experience the various knobs, lakes, woods, and hermitages Merton sought out for times of solitude and contemplation and for reading and writing. These unique images, each accompanied by a passage from Merton's writings, evoke personal reflection and a deeper understanding of how and why Merton came to recognize himself as a part of his Kentucky landscape.

Woven throughout the book, Weis's text explores Merton's fascination with nature not only at Gethsemani, but during his early childhood, throughout his spiritual conversion to Roman Catholicism, and while a member of the Trappist community. She examines how Merton's lifelong interaction with nature subtly revealed and informed his profound spiritual experiences and his writing about contemplation. Thomas Merton's Gethsemani replicates Merton's path on his solitary hikes in the woods and conveys the wonder of the landscapes that inspired him.

About this title

From the Publisher:

"Hinkle's stunning photographs, and the text which accompanies them, allow us to see Merton's monastic world with that fresh eye which Thomas Merton himself insisted was the gift of contemplation." --Lawrence S. Cunningham, University of Notre Dame

"Harry Hinkle's superb photographs do for 'Merton Country' what Herbert Gleason did many years ago for Thoreau-provide a vivid record of the landscapes and natural phenomena that inspired the author-and Monica Weis' lucid tracing of both the chronological breadth and spiritual depth of Merton's reflections on his environment reveal why and how the natural world served Merton as a revelation of the Creator." --Patrick F. O'Connell, coeditor of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia

About the Author:

Harry L. Hinkle is a fine art photographer in Lexington, Kentucky.

Monica Weis, SSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph, is professor of English at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0813123488
• ISBN 13: 9780813123486
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176