Citation

Cunningham, Lawrence S. Thomas Merton: The Writing Life and the Contemplative Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get-B1lwip8. University of Chicago.

Quotes

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Collations

Process 1: Terse maxims to books

When Merton entered the monastery, he promised to stop all writing. But his abbott gave him writing assignments and encouraged him to write his autobiography.

St. John of the Cross' writing practice:

• Writes dense aphoristic sayings on a short piece of paper to handout to various people for reflection.
• This later became "The Sayings of Light and Love."
• The book contains avisos or little pieces of advice.

Merton read St. John of the Cross for contemplation.

Merton said that a collection of 20 or 30 of maxims similar to those written by St. John of the Cross will make a great monastic book.

Although he didn't compile a book of these maxims, he used them as starting point for extended meditations that became the basis for Thoughts in Solitude (1956) and New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)

SOLUTION 1: Terse maxims which, in turn, became the object of reflection from which emerges books given as a gift to a larger audience.

1. Think about them himself.
2. Wrote meditations on them.
3. Offer them for publication.

Process 2: Autobiographical

1. He takes an event.
2. He thinks about it.
3. Use his journal to turn it into a meditation about its deeper significance.
4. Rewrites it in a much more formal way where they become thicker for publication

Wordsworth's definition of poetry: Emotion recollected in tranquility.

The final pieces that are published are almost like prayer in response to events that had happened in the past.

Literature notes

Prompts