Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1948.
My mentor and friend introduced Merton to me a long time ago. However, I began reading his books only months ago.
The Seven Storey Mountain was Merton’s autobiography. The title of the “Seven Storey Mountain” may come from Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio, where each terrace corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins. (Probably not from the Seven Mountains of Revelation 17, and definitely not from the so-called Seven Mountains Mandate.) Merton recalled the idea of getting baptized and said: “I was about to set foot on the shore at the foot of the high, seven-circled mountain of a Purgatory steeper and more arduous than I was able to imagine, and I was not at all aware of the climbing I was about to have to do.” (p. 221) The book ended when he was formally accepted into the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance as a Trappist monk. Merton’s father was an artist from Christchurch, New Zealand. His mother went to the Quakers. His mother died when he was very young. And his father was painting everywhere and often was not home. He did bring him along from time to time, so he was educated in France and in England. Somehow, he was sensitive to desolation, emptiness, and abandonment. He was educated at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University. I guess his conversion to the Catholic faith draws the attention of many readers, including me. How on earth did someone who could live well in the secular world give up all and become a monk? That’s the interesting part. Merton’s later life was somewhat controversial, especially his embracing Eastern religions, but this is not included in this book.
He read the Bible in Latin. It was the interior peace that he found in the Bible and the holy places that drew him into Catholicism. However, he was interested in mysticism and Eastern mysticism. His definition of mystical life is “the life of sanctifying grace and the infused theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost.” (p. 229) But he had a high view of the Scriptures: “God often talks to us directly in Scripture. That is, He plants the words full of actual graces as we read them, and sudden undiscovered meanings are sown in our hearts, if we attend to them, reading with minds that are at prayer.” (pp. 293–94)
He lived a contemplative life. “First comes the active life (practice of virtues, mortification, charity) which prepares us for contemplation. Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence of God and learns something of the secret of His perfections less by seeing than by fruitive love. Yet to stop here would be to fall short of perfection. According to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, it is the comparatively weak soul that arrives at contemplation but does not overflow with a love that must communicate what it knows of God to other men.” (p. 415)
He had a very high view of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “She kept everything that was bourgeois about her and was still not incompatible with her vocation… [she was] the greatest saint there has been in the Church for three hundred years–even greater, in some respects, than the two tremendous reformers of her Order, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.” (355–56)
Merton is famous for his writings on spirituality and interfaith dialogue. I am not a big fan of interreligious dialogue, because there are fundamental differences between religions that will never be settled. For example, does a Creator exist? A Zen Buddhist and a Christian will disagree with one another. I think, but I am not so sure now.
As to spirituality, it is more than feeling good in the nature. True spirituality must be seen in how one views God, his life, his family and friends, and the world. Nature, contemplative life, and life in a monastery may shape one’s spirituality. However, at the end of the day, spirituality is not just between you and God.