Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings [Paperback]

Thomas Merton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2004

An intensely personal devotional book from Thomas Merton, the ultimate spiritual writer of our time, showing his contemplative and religious side through his prayers and rarely-seen drawings. The only Merton gift book available.

Dialogues with Silence contains a selection of prayers from throughout Merton's life--from his journals, letters, poetry, books--accompanied by all 100 of Merton's rarely seen, delightful Zen-like pen-and-ink drawings, and will attract new readers as well as Merton devotees. There is no other Merton devotional like this, and the paperback edition will be elegantly designed and packaged.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though best known for his spiritual writings, Thomas Merton also made drawings, whose Eastern-style brushwork have a meditative power rivaling that of his finest prayers. In Dialogues with Silence, these (mostly unpublished) drawings--of human figures, churches, the crucifixion, and abstract forms--are paired on pages with the texts of his well-known prayers. Editor Jonathan Montaldo's introduction to this volume asserts that Merton, the author of classics including The Seven Storey Mountain, became a:

witness for his generation of the way out of self-defeating individualism by tracking anew the boundaries of that ancient other country, whose citizens recognize a hidden ground of unity and love among all living things.

He might have added that, for Merton, one direct escape from individualism was the act of loving other individuals, an aspect of Merton's character that shines clearly in the many portraits here. Notably, the most arresting of these images is a face without features. It hovers next to a prayer that begins, "O God, my God, why am I so mute?" --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like his beautifully crafted letters and journals, Merton's prayers and drawings reveal his multifaceted personality, his hunger for God and his passion for providing others with a glimpse of the path to union with God. Jonathan Montaldo, who directs the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Ky., collects here for the first time Merton's black-and-white line drawings along with the monk's prayers, most of which have been previously published. The effect is stunning, for the drawings and prayers are printed on facing pages. The stark realism of Merton's art startles and prepares the soul for the prayer on the opposite page. For example, opposite a drawing of a humble Mary, he prays: "Lady, Queen of Heaven, pray me into solitude and silence and unity, that all my ways may be immaculate in God.... Let me... disappear into the writing I do. It should mean nothing special to me... its results should not concern me." Opposite a half-formed figure, Merton prays: "My God, I pray better to You by breathing/ I pray better to You by walking than by talking." While some readers will wonder why the world needs another book of Merton's writings when these prayers are available already, Merton's art provides a glimpse of his journey never before seen. Merton fans will certainly welcome this new addition to their already burgeoning shelves. (Nov.)Forecast: Publishing Thomas Merton's writings has become a small cottage industry, and Harper San Francisco holds the key to the cottage door. As long as there are treasures to be mined from Merton's life and writings, expect more little volumes like this.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (February 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060656034
• ISBN-13: 978-0060656034
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has millions of copies and has been translated into over fifteen languages. He wrote over sixty other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani brought about profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing conversion impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to race and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dali Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution. The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance to Gethsemani.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Silence is enough., October 29, 2001

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings (Hardcover)

Before becoming a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton "loved books, women, ideas, art, jazz, hard drink, cigarettes, argument, and having his opinions heard" (p. x). At age 26, however, he abandoned that life for a life of prayer, silence, and anonymity "from the world's one thousand and one interesting things" (p. x). He ended his wanderlust by travelling instead the inner geography of his heart and soul. This collection of 183 prayers is the result of his twenty-seven-year journey as a monk at Gethsemany.

"This book is a partial harvest from over four hundred prayers collected from Merton's published and unpublished works" (p. xvii). Most of the prayers here are derived from Father Merton's THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE and ENTERING THE SILENCE. (I have given this book four stars only when measured against his NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION, and these earlier books.) In his prayers, we find Merton entrusting himself "completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods, and hills, or sea, or desert," his heart on fire, as he quietly searches for salvation. "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going," he prays. "I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end" (p. vii).

Although this may not be Father Merton's best book, it offers us the quiet prayers of a humble monk. Those prayers may be experienced as a powerful antidote to the troubling events unfolding in the world today.

G. Merritt

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Portrait of Prayer, April 22, 2006

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings (Paperback)

While he was alive, Thomas Merton dedicated his life as a monk to contemplative meditation, constantly seeking a closer and ideal relationship with God. After becoming a Trappist monk at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, he searched for solace in a monk's life of solitude. But the more Merton expressed himself through his writing, and became better known in the outside world, the solitude that he sought was harder and harder for him to find. Johnathan Montaldo has done a wonderful job of editing this collection of Merton's prayers and private thoughts and pairing them with sketches from Merton's own hand. Together both represent the soul of a man who offers inspiration and insight to this very day.

"Dialogues with Silence" is a collection that is best read in small batches; while it is possible to read it through as one might a novel, the point of meditation and contemplation (especially on the prayers) would be lost. Some of the pictures and words go hand in hand and offer a look into Father Merton that many have never experienced before this book. The prayers are a candid glimpse into a struggling soul, and are juxtaposed with thoughts on nature and poems that are starkly beautiful. Every page is a testament to the magnificent talent that Merton had in transferring his thoughts into words.

There are many prayers I could single out to include as an example of the power of Merton's writing, but this prayer to Etienne Gilson struck me as most appropriate to one of the struggles that Merton underwent: "Please pray for me to Our Lord that, instead of merely writing something, I may 'be' something, and indeed that I may so fully be what I ought to be that there may be no further necessity for me to write, since the mere fact of being what I ought to be would be more eloquent than many books." It is extremely fortunate for us that Merton did feel the need to write so that his love of God might be an inspiration to all who read his works.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A SACRAMENT OF THE MOMENT TO ME, August 6, 2009

By 

nana (fl.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings (Paperback)

I have read many of his books since reading SEVEN STORY MOUNTAIN, A GREAT FAITH-SHARING READ,, A FRIEND HAD THIS AND I SENT FOR IT..I AM GRATEFUL FOR AMAZON.....I HAVE HAD SACRAMRANTS OF MOMENTS, THROUGH EACH PAGE OF PRAYER,,EACH DRAWING..IN THE QUIET OF THE SILENCE.. LOVE HIM FOR WROIING ALL HE HAS AND SHARING WITH US...NANA OXOXOX