Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shakers

by Thomas Merton, Paul M. Pearson

In these essays, talks, and a stunning selection of his own photographs, Thomas Merton hauntingly evokes the spirituality of a uniquely American sect. Largely remembered today for a legacy of extraordinary craftsmanship, the Shakers espoused a way of life, as Merton shows, with surprising relevance for today. In their approach to work as a form of worship, in their practice of community, their simplicity and rejection of violence, and their profound witness to the Kingdom of God, Merton finds lessons for all Christians. In the Shakers prophetic departure from the American myth of progress, efficiency, and individualism, he finds a message of enduring value for our time.

125 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Thomas Merton, religious name M. Louis, was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. In December 1941 he entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani and in May 1949 he was ordained to priesthood. He was a member of the convent of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.
Merton wrote more than 50 books in a period of 27 years, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Among Merton's most enduring works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). His account of his spiritual journey inspired scores of World War II veterans, students, and teenagers to explore offerings of monasteries across the US. It is on National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century.
Merton became a keen proponent of interfaith understanding, exploring Eastern religions through his study of mystic practice. His interfaith conversation, which preserved both Protestant and Catholic theological positions, helped to build mutual respect via their shared experiences at a period of heightened hostility. He is particularly known for having pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama XIV; Japanese writer D.T. Suzuki; Thai Buddhist monk Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He traveled extensively in the course of meeting with them and attending international conferences on religion. In addition, he wrote books on Zen Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, and how Christianity is related to them. This was highly unusual at the time in the United States, particularly within the religious orders.

Reviews

[Harry Allagree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful little book, expertly edited by Paul M. Pearson, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Merton Center at Bellarmine College, Louisville, 12 years ago this month. The photos of Shaker furniture & architecture are magnificent silent witnesses to an unshakeable religious spirit of simplicity & hope, a "paradise spirit". The Shaker vision, in its essence, depicts the hope of what the United States of America could have become, but unfortunately contrasts sharply with what drove the society at the time the Shakers began, with what it is increasingly moving towards today under the influence of the sheer greed, lust & power of Corporate, Business & Political America at its worst, & with the eventual failure & demise which will inevitably occur should the people of America choose to continue on this course in the future. Reading this book will convince you, as it did Thomas Merton even 40 years ago, that the citizens of the U.S. need a critical reality check!

[Therese Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, in its simplicity and beauty, has Spirit flowing through the pages. It is as if, when you open the book, God reaches out a hand through the pages to gently nudge you closer to Him.

It is not a comprehensive discourse on the Shaker faith leaving out almost entirely any attention to ecstatic shaking, but it is an exquisite window onto the landscape of love and devotion. Sit for a spell and breathe it in.

[Alice Yoder · Rating 2 out of 5]

The photos of the Shaker buildings show a somewhat stark existence. The photos of their furniture show functional use. Merton repeats himself too many times to be an enjoyable read. He doesn't go into any details about the similarities he sees between the Shakers and his own monastic existence with the Cistercians. A more in-depth comparison would have been helpful.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live near a beautifully preserved Shaker village, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. This book was a Christmas gift and was a short read. I enjoyed the book and may read more of Merton’s writing.

[A.E. Reiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Merton dares to say of the Shakers applies to the Anabaptists whose view of nature is the antidote for the modern.These things are not past finding out.

Thomas Merton's Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shakers (2003) has a view of The Inner Experience where Merton's phrase "images of Paradise" translates their art of making. It is all about believing and doing. Among Shakers "the peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it" (Shakers, 85) says Merton. This believing has been a stumbling block to visions of every kind among critical classes, from the prescient Milton taking dictation from the Holy Spirit each night to compose Paradise Lost, to the Shakers, who "believed their furniture was designed by angels--and Blake believed his ideas for poems and engraving came from heavenly spirits" (85). It is a great irony that Blake says his poem entitled Milton was so dictated. A little of this frustrates a lot of rationalist.

Merton illumines too against "the blindness of 'single vision' which sees only the outward material surface of reality, not its inner spiritual form and the still more spiritual 'force' from which the form proceeds" (74). Shaker "work of the craftsman's hands had to be an embodiment of 'form.' The form had to be an expression of spiritual force. The force sprang directly from the mystery of God through Christ in the Believing artist" (79). If the believing artist was given these forms in hand and mind by a spiritual force, God in Christ, that art would not find illumination outside these beliefs. Merton says Shaker art has "something to do with what Blake called 'the secret furniture of Jerusalem's chamber'" (74), that "a work-a-day bench, cupboard, or table might also and at the same time be furniture in and for heaven" (74). For Merton it is also obvious that "Shaker inspiration was communal...due not to the individual craftsman but to the community spirit and consciousness of the Believers" (76).

Shakers practice the communal production of their forms. Merton says Shaker forms were "a better, clearer, more comprehensible expression of their faith than their written theology" (76), a mythology seeing the outer surface through the inner form, the "spiritual force from which the form proceeds" (Merton, 74).

"Their only advertisement was the work itself" (Merton, 79) in the field, orchard and plant, spiritual conditions made out of the natural. This celebration of life was many ways opposed to much of the surrounding English culture whose domination of peoples and empires had commercial motives.

See http://thewayintothefloweringheart.bl...

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a collection than a cohesive whole. I want to give it away now.