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The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) [Paperback]

Thomas Merton
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 17, 1970 New Directions (Book 295)

The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton's favorites among his own books—surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit.

The personal tones of the translations, the blend of reverence and humor so characteristic of him, show how deeply Merton identified with the legendary authors of these sayings and parables, the fourth-century Christian Fathers who sought solitude and contemplation in the deserts of the Near East.

The hermits of Screte who turned their backs on a corrupt society remarkably like our own had much in common with the Zen masters of China and Japan, and Father Merton made his selection from them with an eye to the kind of impact produced by the Zen mondo.

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The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) + The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Studies) (Cistercian Studies 59)
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, following his conversion to Catholicism and was ordained Father M. Louis in 1949. During the 1960s, he was increasingly drawn into a dialogue between Eastern and Western religions and domestic issues of war and racism. In 1968, the Dalai Lama praised Merton for having a more profound knowledge of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. Thomas Merton is the author of the beloved classic The Seven Storey Mountain.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 81 pages
  • Publisher: New Directions; 30th edition (January 17, 1970)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0811201023
  • ISBN-13: 978-0811201025
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.3 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,992 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

I own most of the collections of the desert fathers but this is my favorite. Dan E. Nicholas  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
He begins this book with a very well written introduction. M. A. Ramos  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
Over and over again, the Desert Fathers stress love above all. FrKurt Messick  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
59 of 63 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for What it sets out to do September 6, 2000
Format:Paperback
As another reviewer notes, Merton's selections are not as comprehensive as Helen Waddell's, and his introduction does not provide nearly as detailed an account of the historical and literary context of the desert fathers' sayings. This is not Merton's purpose. He is trying to give us a sense of the spiritual essence of the fathers, and he does it brilliantly. Although he is not as elegant a writer as Waddell, nor as learned, he has a much deeper intuitive understanding of the fathers' search for God and their love for each other. His selections emphasize the importance of this love and downplay the fanatical asceticism that many people associate with the fathers. Throughout his introduction, he emphasizes that love is far more important in the Christian life than either mysticism or asceticism. Thus, although a sympathetic reader may not learn terribly much about the history of the desert fathers from Merton, she will begin to understand "the wisdom of the desert".
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A wisdom well warmed October 1, 2005
Format:Paperback
Thomas Merton was perhaps the best known monastic of the last century. That he was a Trappist perhaps puts him in the best contemporary context from which to understand the Desert Fathers - the kind of hermit/distance existence that they had does not really exist in the world today (true, there are a few who carry on the tradition in the deserts of Egypt and a few other places, but often even they advise against this becoming a trend in Christian practice again). The Trappists are among those for whom silence and solitude are intentional practices, much like the Desert Fathers.

Merton, a talented writer on matters spiritual, states in the Author's note that his intention was not to produce a new 'edition' by academic standards, or to do any piece of new research. Rather, Merton set out to produce an accessible collection of wisdom sayings that had been contained in the collection 'Verba Seniorum', a Latin text of stories and proverbs handed down from the Desert Fathers and those who knew and wrote about them.

In the fourth century, while Christianity was still struggling as a minority (sometimes a violently oppressed minority) in the Empire, there were those who saw that the greater threat to the new faith was not the imperial officials and their forces, but rather the attractions and lure of the cities. It was very easy to put forth the claim that the world was not a Christian one, and that one would have to renounce the world to live an authentically Christian life - the Desert Fathers tended to do this renunciation in rather dramatic fashion (and, to varying extent, this is what monastics continue to do to this day). This renunciation was true even with official tolerance and imperial imprimatur, for Christianity was still the decided minority.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Some choices from the 'Verba Seniorum' October 22, 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk and wrote this book that contains his favorite quotes from 'Verba Seniorum'. He chooses these for himself and his fellow monks in order to make some of the sayings of the Desert Fathers more accessible. He begins this book with a very well written introduction.

Merton wrote this book not as a history of the early Desert Fathers. What he provides are a selection of extracts from their writings that had proved useful for him in his contemplative life. The book is definitely worth reading. A book you will keep by your night stand.

If you are looking for a book that gives you a history of the Desert Fathers and a wide range of their writings, then this is the wrong book for you.
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44 of 52 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars A Drop of the Water of Wisdom June 18, 2000
Format:Paperback
This small book (81 pages, including a 24 page introduction) is a collection of short sayings and stories out of the early Christian desert tradition predating monasticism. Taken from a classical collection called Verba Seniorium, in Migne's Latin Patrology, Merton selects a somewhat arbitrary group of personal "greatest hits", and adds an essay-introduction on the importance of the Desert Fathers as representing "a discovery of man, at the term of an inner and spiritual journey that is far more crucial and infinitely more important than a journey to the moon" (introduction, page 11).

Thus launched, the sayings spill out in no particular order or chapters, without name or context to read against. As an introduction to the desert tradition, this book may provide a small opening to test interest. Other collections, however, (The Desert Fathers, translated/introduced by H. Waddell; The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated/introduced by Benedicta Ward) are better grounded historically, and give a far wider rnage of material than does this personal gathering of favorites. This book sheds little light on either Father Merton or desert fathers.

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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
...in search of spiritual peace.

The metaphor of going to the desert in order to pray more profoundly is something that I can relate to. With these monks, it wasn't just a metaphor.

The late Thomas Merton, at the least, was a great writer. He wrote introductions to other books, on Gandhi and books on Zen and Christianity. And really, his introductions were more insightful than the contents that he introduced.

If the example of these monks can inspire us to practice praying in a deeper way in our daily lives, even if we never go near a desert, then this book will have served its purpose well.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Tome for some
Thomas Merton's The Wisdom of the Desert takes us to the hermetic wasteland of St Anthony and company and thus sets us about visiting a mess of caves of grasshopper-eating... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jack Vaughan
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I wanted
I am eager to read this book in more depth. So far, I have just skimmed it. I am very interested in the Desert Fathers.
Published 6 months ago by Leswerks
3.0 out of 5 stars Desert Fathers, kinda dry
I have read several books on the desert Fathers and I ordered this one because I like Merton. I wanted to see which sayings he would highlight. Read more
Published 8 months ago by C. C. Elledge
5.0 out of 5 stars Christian Wisdom, Profound Insights
You don't need Zen koans or ancient Vedas to experience profound wisdom. The Christian tradition is alive with the thoughtful and profound insights of its own holy men and women. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Edward J. Barton
5.0 out of 5 stars An oasis in the sand
Thomas Merton, that great Trappist monk, is an American treasure. Merton is a creative and wonderful writer, who wrote many important books on monasticism and spirituality. Read more
Published on December 13, 2010 by Andrew Dahlburg
5.0 out of 5 stars I love giving copies of this to friends
This has an East West friendliness I liked in that Thomas Merton picks the stories that he found insightful told and retold during in those early centuries of the beginning of... Read more
Published on September 28, 2010 by Dan E. Nicholas
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent spiritual introduction to the Desert Fathers
This is a very short (less than 100 pages) collection of sayings of the Desert Fathers, with a brief historical introduction from Merton. Read more
Published on March 15, 2009 by Brad Shorr
4.0 out of 5 stars Not comprehensive & sweeping; rather, simple enjoyment.
I found myself taking this small book in miniscule bites, a saying here, a saying there, over the course of a week and a half after purchasing it. Read more
Published on February 24, 2009 by Adam D. R. Baker
4.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Read...Still.
Having spent time with the Philokalia(in translation)over many years, then to read Thomas Merton's prolegomena together with excerpts of such works (from Minge's opus LATIN... Read more
Published on December 16, 2008 by J. Wilkens
5.0 out of 5 stars Merton among friends
"The Wisdom of the Desert", though a slim volume in comparison to the loads of theological tomes both historical and philosophical that have been written about these mysterious... Read more
Published on January 20, 2008 by J from NY
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