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Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings
Thomas Merton loved life with the passion of a romantic poet. At the age of twenty-six he chose to become a Trappist monk and began to pursue his ultimate, lifelong passion. From his austere quarters at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky, Merton worked to change the world and to come closer to his God. The drawings and prayers in this volume are the intimate, beautifully rendered record of that pursuit -- Merton's dialogue with God. The prayers have been gathered from all of Merton's writings -- his books, journals, letters -- and are collected here, along with his largely unknown drawings, for the first time. In his drawings we see the evolution of Merton's art from purely representational to the more abstract, reflecting his interest in Zen andEastern cultures. It is easy to see that art was in his genes; both of his parents were artists. With each prayer and in every brushstroke, we sensethe depth of Merton's passion as we pause and incline our ear to his voice offering these heartfelt songs to God and to the world. Dialogues with Silence invites the reader to enter into that sacred realm of contemplation where we listen in silence and await the divine presence in our lives, where emptiness becomes the juncture for the interchange between the outer and inner worlds, where darkness is transformed into light -- the place where the voice of God is revealed.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
71 people are currently reading
645 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Merton
554 books1,901 followersThomas 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
March 24, 2025
an honest man struggling to be real
He struggles to be an honest man and speak honest thoughts, pray prayers often difficult to pray.
His simple brush strokes of faces and figures and landscapes reminds me of the same kind of simple but profound Japanese brush strokes they emulate.
Here’s a sense of his spirit from another of his books:
“Darling, I am telling you: this life in the woods is IT. It is the only way. It is the way everybody has lost. It is life, this thing in the woods. I do not claim it is real. All I say is that it is the life that has chosen itself for me.”
“Why do I live alone? I don't know. In some mysterious way I am condemned to it. I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough, and to add something else is to mess it all up. I cannot explain it. Freedom, darling. This is what the woods mean to me. I am free, free, a wild being, and that is all that I ever can really be. I am dedicated to it, addicted to it, sworn to it, and sold to it. It is the freedom in me that loves you.”
He struggles to be an honest man and speak honest thoughts, pray prayers often difficult to pray.
His simple brush strokes of faces and figures and landscapes reminds me of the same kind of simple but profound Japanese brush strokes they emulate.
Here’s a sense of his spirit from another of his books:
“Darling, I am telling you: this life in the woods is IT. It is the only way. It is the way everybody has lost. It is life, this thing in the woods. I do not claim it is real. All I say is that it is the life that has chosen itself for me.”
“Why do I live alone? I don't know. In some mysterious way I am condemned to it. I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough, and to add something else is to mess it all up. I cannot explain it. Freedom, darling. This is what the woods mean to me. I am free, free, a wild being, and that is all that I ever can really be. I am dedicated to it, addicted to it, sworn to it, and sold to it. It is the freedom in me that loves you.”
March 6, 2021
A volume of prayers and drawings gathered from a number of sources. Most of the prayers are previously published, many of the draws were first published here. This has sat on my desk for close to a year. Occasionally glanced at and dipped into. In the past two weeks, I've read the second half of it in earnest. It is quiet and intimate. Less apologetic than some of the other Merton I've read. The final section with a number of prayers written for acquaintances (Robert Lax, Dorothy Day, etc.) are particularly moving, exhibiting some of Merton's humor as well as his fear and trembling. The final selection from the end of Merton's life while he was in Asia feel almost out of place, but are still vital to any larger understanding of Merton's development. Not where I would start, but if you like Merton, there is much here.
May 24, 2024
A lovely and profound book of prayers, poems, and drawings. This is a book that’s meant to be read slowly.
July 24, 2016
From Powell Books: "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."
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."
August 4, 2020
A set of short, poetic, prayerful reflections accompanied by minimal ink sketches, showing a different side to Merton's more intense contemplative writings. The beauty lies in the simplicity, often profound, sometimes enigmatic, always soulful and with a sense of peace. Written at the Abbey of Gethsemani, they give the impression of Merton venturing further into solitude, emptying out, losing his 'false self' in surrender. The simple drawings, some are little more than outlines, add to a sense of stillness. A beautiful book, for reflection and consolation.
April 12, 2022
I read this almost a year ago, didn't realize a year had passed (and so fitting to be in the presence of such longing around Good Friday). Just being able to spend an afternoon or two with Merton's longing is worth every moment spent with this book.
April 4, 2023
Crucial. Not a linear read, hop around pages and let the spirit guide you.
May 27, 2022
What is it with Catholics named Thomas who give me incredible hope and comfort? First Thomas a Kempis, now Thomas Merton... I should really finish out this Thomistic trinity with Thomas Aquinas!
As for this book itself, it's a collection of prayers and artwork by Merton taken from various publications of his. The editor did a great job, and the entire vibe of the book was amazing. There was an informative introduction which wasn't overly long or stuffy, and most importantly the first prayer listed in the Collection is probably one of the best prayers I've read. Apparently it's famous. Also, the art that it was paired with worked very well. That prayer instantly pulled me in and I dropped what I was doing to start reading the book.
Before we get into the content of the book, I wanted to touch on the delightful line drawings that were included. The introduction remarked on their zen style, and I agree. They're very simple and unpretentious, and I appreciated their inclusion. It helped give some breathing room to the prayers, and they often complemented the prayers that were opposite them. The drawings consisted of faces (male and female) of monks/nuns, of Christ, of Mary, and of Churches. These drawings are in the tradition of art and poetry living side by side, and it helped the book feel like home.
Speaking of poetry, some of the "prayers" in this collection were really poems, and some of them were prose segments of books split up into quasi-prayers. The poems were strange to me, neither horribly gripping nor bad at all; some of them evoked impressive images, like the one of the flagellants, but they were comparatively rare and passable. The real meat of the book was the prayers, and boy do they deliver. The first prayer, like I mentioned above, is a beautifully vulnerable one, which I'll reproduce below:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
I was gripped with the vulnerability and relatability of this prayer, and it met me right where I was. Though it comes off like it was written in one take, in the depths of emotion, it feels to me like it only could have come from someone like Merton, who is both learned and unpretentious, both deep in some ways and aware of his shallowness in others. And that's really a great summary of the entire book. There is the paradox of the boldness of a child approaching their Heavenly Father with a request, but also at the same time cowering and crying face down. A prayer near the end of the collection describes this:
...to be a real good hermit and listen to the word of God and respond like a man. That is what it really involves: simply to stand on one's feet before one's Father and reply to Him in the Spirit. This business about replying to the Father in the Spirit may sound like big talk, but I don't mean it that way. "In the Spirit," in any context I know of, means flat on your face. How can one stand on one's own feet and be flat on one's face at the same time is a mystery I will have to try to work out by living it.
This tension through paradox is something Merton picked up from his studies of Zen Buddhism, and I also respect that tradition a bit. I think it is perhaps the closest one can get to God without revelation. It most frequently recognizes life's various paradoxes, the various examples of two sides making up one coin, as well as wabi-sabi the fleeting, transient nature of life (and of nature). Merton works both of these into his prayers, acknowledging to powerful effect the worthlessness of anything you can grasp, and also the paradox of sinner and saint, of being damned by the Law but resurrected by the Gospel, all without deserving it.
Merton's message, to Christian and unbeliever alike, is to revel in God's Grace, and to grow closer to him through it. Merton often skirts heresy (or is it just eastern orthodoxy's concept of Theosis?) when he emphasizes the union between man and God, of becoming One with God (at times essentially taking Taoist texts and replacing a few words). I don't fault Merton for this at all, since he is a bridge-builder, and he is attempting to integrate the wisdom he gleaned from other cultures into his Christianity.
You need not worry, since Merton is still decidedly Christian (and dogmatically exclusivist at that), as he outlines in one of the better prayers of the collection:
Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, in Whom the fullness of God dwells and is manifested, whoever tries to be a contemplative without You is dead. Whoever enters into interior darkness in which You cannot be found enters into the gate of hell. Whoever enters into a silence in which Your voice cannot be heard enters into the antechamber of the devil. Whoever goes where You cannot be seen is crazy.
This talk of stumbling into satan's room reminds me of Luther, and its decisiveness gives me relief that Merton, despite his wide learning, still holds solid opinions. There are others like Kahlil Gibran or even what little I've read of Rumi who seem to be superficial in their universalism, their fear to offend, their attempt to lump every religious person into the same pile. Merton definitely doesn't do that, as he barely even considers himself to be religious, despite spending more time contemplating God in one month than most of us do in our lifetime. I think that to him, all religious traditions have some value, but certainly not the same value, nor do they all lead to the same God, because many of them point away from Christ. He prefers to work with the similarities as a starting place, and take an indirect and windy route back to the cross. This probably is a better approach than a frontal assault for most people.
But Merton isn't out here evangelizing all day, he's much too modest for that. He's trying to figure out if he even still believes. The fact that he prayed through his doubts and confusion I think is proof that he did have deep faith. There is an uncertainty dripping from these pages, but refreshingly it's not an uncertainty in God, but in himself. Merton repeatedly throws himself on God's grace, puts himself at God's mercy, admits his own folly and ignorance. Despite all the religious learning he's done, he still struggles as much as the rest of us, perhaps even more. Merely valuing an ideal doesn't mean one contains that virtue, and that is a difficult lesson to learn.
Dear Lord, I am not living like a monk, like a contemplative. The first essential is missing. I only say I trust you. My actions prove that the one I trust is myself--and that I am still afraid of you
I needed to hear this, to be reminded of this, because I had been feeling similarly to Merton, where I feared God because I knew I was living for myself instead of for Him. Thomas, like his namesake A Kempis, really knows how to lay you bare and cut the shit. Merton does it much more gently, but they both achieve similar things. This loving chastizement is adjacent to the renouncement of the world, which both Thomases excel at. I especially love those Wabi-Sabi moments, and I deeply wish I could express them in a convincing way to certain materialists who I know:
Tribulation detaches us from the things of nothingness in which we spend ourselves and die. Therefore, tribulation gives us life and we love it, not out of love for death, but out of love for life.
...
Lord God, the whole world tonight seems made out of paper. The most substantial things are ready to crumble apart and blow away.
...
My Hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards. My hope is in what the human heart cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feeling of my heart. My hope is in what the hand has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers, because Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.
I find these and the Christian tradition of willing suffering to be among the most convincing arguments for Christianity and against the modern age. Modernity is obsessed with comfort, and many people today (who I would dare to call unthinking or even unfeeling) simply cannot comprehend value coming from suffering, or any higher ideal than comfort. I pity them, and I pray for the wisdom to shake them awake someday.
Getting off my high horse and back into the gutter where my sins leave me, I was blown away by an Old Testament connection that I had never heard before. Merton eloquently made a parallel between the sinner's justification through grace, and Jacob's tricking of Isaac into giving him Esau's birthright. I'm not sure how I had never made this connection, but I absolutely loved learning about it.
As for any downsides of the collection, there was a section near the end of Marian prayers which weren't as eloquent or relatable to me (not just because I'm Protestant, but also because they seemed to be excerpts from prose instead of "real" prayers). Just after this section, I was impressed to see a short and unpretentious prayer which actually managed to also pray for "the salvation of all people, nuns, business men, Hitler, everybody". I found that more than just witty, but actually sincere. When the recent Ukrainian war started, there were a couple prominent Christians who asked us to pray for Putin, and I think that that's the correct approach. We know God can turn the hearts of murderers. Paul is a case in point. So is David Wood. Stupidly, I considered it a waste of time back at the start, and I didn't pray for him. I thought it probably wise to do so, but my actions did not line up with my ideals, as discussed above. Reading this passage reminded me of that entire situation, and it helped humble me.
I think the best thing to close with would be a short prayer, probably the shortest of the collection, which sums up the hopeful humility we all should have:
God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking you!
Amen.
As for this book itself, it's a collection of prayers and artwork by Merton taken from various publications of his. The editor did a great job, and the entire vibe of the book was amazing. There was an informative introduction which wasn't overly long or stuffy, and most importantly the first prayer listed in the Collection is probably one of the best prayers I've read. Apparently it's famous. Also, the art that it was paired with worked very well. That prayer instantly pulled me in and I dropped what I was doing to start reading the book.
Before we get into the content of the book, I wanted to touch on the delightful line drawings that were included. The introduction remarked on their zen style, and I agree. They're very simple and unpretentious, and I appreciated their inclusion. It helped give some breathing room to the prayers, and they often complemented the prayers that were opposite them. The drawings consisted of faces (male and female) of monks/nuns, of Christ, of Mary, and of Churches. These drawings are in the tradition of art and poetry living side by side, and it helped the book feel like home.
Speaking of poetry, some of the "prayers" in this collection were really poems, and some of them were prose segments of books split up into quasi-prayers. The poems were strange to me, neither horribly gripping nor bad at all; some of them evoked impressive images, like the one of the flagellants, but they were comparatively rare and passable. The real meat of the book was the prayers, and boy do they deliver. The first prayer, like I mentioned above, is a beautifully vulnerable one, which I'll reproduce below:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
I was gripped with the vulnerability and relatability of this prayer, and it met me right where I was. Though it comes off like it was written in one take, in the depths of emotion, it feels to me like it only could have come from someone like Merton, who is both learned and unpretentious, both deep in some ways and aware of his shallowness in others. And that's really a great summary of the entire book. There is the paradox of the boldness of a child approaching their Heavenly Father with a request, but also at the same time cowering and crying face down. A prayer near the end of the collection describes this:
...to be a real good hermit and listen to the word of God and respond like a man. That is what it really involves: simply to stand on one's feet before one's Father and reply to Him in the Spirit. This business about replying to the Father in the Spirit may sound like big talk, but I don't mean it that way. "In the Spirit," in any context I know of, means flat on your face. How can one stand on one's own feet and be flat on one's face at the same time is a mystery I will have to try to work out by living it.
This tension through paradox is something Merton picked up from his studies of Zen Buddhism, and I also respect that tradition a bit. I think it is perhaps the closest one can get to God without revelation. It most frequently recognizes life's various paradoxes, the various examples of two sides making up one coin, as well as wabi-sabi the fleeting, transient nature of life (and of nature). Merton works both of these into his prayers, acknowledging to powerful effect the worthlessness of anything you can grasp, and also the paradox of sinner and saint, of being damned by the Law but resurrected by the Gospel, all without deserving it.
Merton's message, to Christian and unbeliever alike, is to revel in God's Grace, and to grow closer to him through it. Merton often skirts heresy (or is it just eastern orthodoxy's concept of Theosis?) when he emphasizes the union between man and God, of becoming One with God (at times essentially taking Taoist texts and replacing a few words). I don't fault Merton for this at all, since he is a bridge-builder, and he is attempting to integrate the wisdom he gleaned from other cultures into his Christianity.
You need not worry, since Merton is still decidedly Christian (and dogmatically exclusivist at that), as he outlines in one of the better prayers of the collection:
Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, in Whom the fullness of God dwells and is manifested, whoever tries to be a contemplative without You is dead. Whoever enters into interior darkness in which You cannot be found enters into the gate of hell. Whoever enters into a silence in which Your voice cannot be heard enters into the antechamber of the devil. Whoever goes where You cannot be seen is crazy.
This talk of stumbling into satan's room reminds me of Luther, and its decisiveness gives me relief that Merton, despite his wide learning, still holds solid opinions. There are others like Kahlil Gibran or even what little I've read of Rumi who seem to be superficial in their universalism, their fear to offend, their attempt to lump every religious person into the same pile. Merton definitely doesn't do that, as he barely even considers himself to be religious, despite spending more time contemplating God in one month than most of us do in our lifetime. I think that to him, all religious traditions have some value, but certainly not the same value, nor do they all lead to the same God, because many of them point away from Christ. He prefers to work with the similarities as a starting place, and take an indirect and windy route back to the cross. This probably is a better approach than a frontal assault for most people.
But Merton isn't out here evangelizing all day, he's much too modest for that. He's trying to figure out if he even still believes. The fact that he prayed through his doubts and confusion I think is proof that he did have deep faith. There is an uncertainty dripping from these pages, but refreshingly it's not an uncertainty in God, but in himself. Merton repeatedly throws himself on God's grace, puts himself at God's mercy, admits his own folly and ignorance. Despite all the religious learning he's done, he still struggles as much as the rest of us, perhaps even more. Merely valuing an ideal doesn't mean one contains that virtue, and that is a difficult lesson to learn.
Dear Lord, I am not living like a monk, like a contemplative. The first essential is missing. I only say I trust you. My actions prove that the one I trust is myself--and that I am still afraid of you
I needed to hear this, to be reminded of this, because I had been feeling similarly to Merton, where I feared God because I knew I was living for myself instead of for Him. Thomas, like his namesake A Kempis, really knows how to lay you bare and cut the shit. Merton does it much more gently, but they both achieve similar things. This loving chastizement is adjacent to the renouncement of the world, which both Thomases excel at. I especially love those Wabi-Sabi moments, and I deeply wish I could express them in a convincing way to certain materialists who I know:
Tribulation detaches us from the things of nothingness in which we spend ourselves and die. Therefore, tribulation gives us life and we love it, not out of love for death, but out of love for life.
...
Lord God, the whole world tonight seems made out of paper. The most substantial things are ready to crumble apart and blow away.
...
My Hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards. My hope is in what the human heart cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feeling of my heart. My hope is in what the hand has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers, because Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.
I find these and the Christian tradition of willing suffering to be among the most convincing arguments for Christianity and against the modern age. Modernity is obsessed with comfort, and many people today (who I would dare to call unthinking or even unfeeling) simply cannot comprehend value coming from suffering, or any higher ideal than comfort. I pity them, and I pray for the wisdom to shake them awake someday.
Getting off my high horse and back into the gutter where my sins leave me, I was blown away by an Old Testament connection that I had never heard before. Merton eloquently made a parallel between the sinner's justification through grace, and Jacob's tricking of Isaac into giving him Esau's birthright. I'm not sure how I had never made this connection, but I absolutely loved learning about it.
As for any downsides of the collection, there was a section near the end of Marian prayers which weren't as eloquent or relatable to me (not just because I'm Protestant, but also because they seemed to be excerpts from prose instead of "real" prayers). Just after this section, I was impressed to see a short and unpretentious prayer which actually managed to also pray for "the salvation of all people, nuns, business men, Hitler, everybody". I found that more than just witty, but actually sincere. When the recent Ukrainian war started, there were a couple prominent Christians who asked us to pray for Putin, and I think that that's the correct approach. We know God can turn the hearts of murderers. Paul is a case in point. So is David Wood. Stupidly, I considered it a waste of time back at the start, and I didn't pray for him. I thought it probably wise to do so, but my actions did not line up with my ideals, as discussed above. Reading this passage reminded me of that entire situation, and it helped humble me.
I think the best thing to close with would be a short prayer, probably the shortest of the collection, which sums up the hopeful humility we all should have:
God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking you!
Amen.
May 6, 2021
Merton always moves me so deeply. These edited selections did not disappoint.
January 8, 2009
This is a wonderful little book of prayers and drawings by Thomas Merton, written and drawn during his time as a Trappist monk. The last few pages have a Zen bent, which characterized his later years. It's the kind of book you can always pick up and find something inspiring in, no matter what page you turn to.
June 13, 2024
Beautiful, but no substitute to truly forming this beauty within your own soul; to merely read the prayers of others' is to shirk the same profundity of everything which Merton experienced in his own life at various points.
May 19, 2015
...While in the monastery... Thomas Merton wrote these prayers... and all of these prayers are very heartfelt....
May 3, 2022
Wonderful collection of prayers alongside simple line drawings by Thomas Merton, monk and author.
June 25, 2021
“I no longer desire to see anything that implies a distance between You and me.” (19)
“O Lord, how joyful and happy must they be who, when they
come to consider their own selves, find in themselves nothing remarkable whatever. Not only do they not attract attention outside themselves, but now they no longer have any desires or selfish interests to attract their own attentíon. They remark no virtues; they are saddened by no huge sins; they see only their own unremarkable weakness and nothingness but a nothingness that is filled obscurely, not with themselves, but with Your love, O God! They are poor in spirit who possess within themselves the kíngdomn of heaven because they are no longer remarkable even to themselves. But in them shines God's light and they themselves, and all who see it, glorify You O God!” (25)
“Save me from my own, private, poisonous urge to change everything, to act without reason, to move for movement's sake, to unsettle everythíng that You have ordained.
Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shíne
for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.” (53)
“Let grace come and let this world pass away,
Jesus, You Who are living in my exhausted heart.”
(65)
“Is ít true that my motives have meant nothing? Is it true that all my desires were an illusion?
While I am asking questions that You do not answer, You ask me a question that is so simple that I cannot answer it. I do not even understand the question.” (75)
“But there is a greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. Eternity is in the present.
Eternity is in the palm of the hand. Eternity ís a seed of fire whose sudden roots break barriers that keep my heart from being an abyss.” (89)
“O Lord my God, where have I been sleeping? VWhat have I been doing? How slowly l awaken once again to the barrenncss of my life and its confusion. You will forgive me if it is often that way--I do not mean it to be. How little faith there has been in me-hovw inert have been my hours of solitude, how my time has been wasted. You will forgive me if next week, too, my tíme is all wasted and I am once again in confusion. But at least this afternoon, sittíng on a boulder among the birches, I thought with compunction of Your love and Your kingdom. And again tonight, by the gatchouse, I thought of the hope You have planted in our hearts and of the Kingdom of Heaven that I have
done so little to gain for myself and for others.” (103)
“Almost everything is ashes. What I have prized the most is ashes. What I have attended to least is, perhaps, a little solid.” (121)
“ A Prayer to Dorothy Day
O Dorothy, I think of you and the beat people and the ones with nothing and the poor in virtue, the very poor, the ones no one can respect. I am not worthy to say I love all of you. Intercede for me, a stuffed shirt in a place of stuffed shirts and a big dumb phony, who has tried to be respectable and has succeeded. What a deception! I know, of course, that you are respected, too, but you have a right to be. You didn't jump into the most respectable possible situation and then tell everyone about it. I am worried about all this, but I am not beating myself over the head. I just think that, for the love of God, I should say it, and that, for the love of God, you should pray for me.” (159)
“A Prayer to Mary Luke Tobin
Pray for me to be a real good hermit and listen to the word of God and respond like a man. That is what it really involves: simply to stand on one's feet before one's Father and reply to Him in the Spirit. This busincss about replying to the Father in the Spirit may sound like big talk but I don't mean it that way. "In the Spirit,) in any context I know of, means flat on your face. How one can stand on one’s own feet and be flat on one’s face at the same time is a mystery I will have to try to work out by living it.” (167)
“O silence, golden zero
Unsetting sun
Love winter when the plant says nothing” (183)
“O Lord, how joyful and happy must they be who, when they
come to consider their own selves, find in themselves nothing remarkable whatever. Not only do they not attract attention outside themselves, but now they no longer have any desires or selfish interests to attract their own attentíon. They remark no virtues; they are saddened by no huge sins; they see only their own unremarkable weakness and nothingness but a nothingness that is filled obscurely, not with themselves, but with Your love, O God! They are poor in spirit who possess within themselves the kíngdomn of heaven because they are no longer remarkable even to themselves. But in them shines God's light and they themselves, and all who see it, glorify You O God!” (25)
“Save me from my own, private, poisonous urge to change everything, to act without reason, to move for movement's sake, to unsettle everythíng that You have ordained.
Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shíne
for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.” (53)
“Let grace come and let this world pass away,
Jesus, You Who are living in my exhausted heart.”
(65)
“Is ít true that my motives have meant nothing? Is it true that all my desires were an illusion?
While I am asking questions that You do not answer, You ask me a question that is so simple that I cannot answer it. I do not even understand the question.” (75)
“But there is a greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. Eternity is in the present.
Eternity is in the palm of the hand. Eternity ís a seed of fire whose sudden roots break barriers that keep my heart from being an abyss.” (89)
“O Lord my God, where have I been sleeping? VWhat have I been doing? How slowly l awaken once again to the barrenncss of my life and its confusion. You will forgive me if it is often that way--I do not mean it to be. How little faith there has been in me-hovw inert have been my hours of solitude, how my time has been wasted. You will forgive me if next week, too, my tíme is all wasted and I am once again in confusion. But at least this afternoon, sittíng on a boulder among the birches, I thought with compunction of Your love and Your kingdom. And again tonight, by the gatchouse, I thought of the hope You have planted in our hearts and of the Kingdom of Heaven that I have
done so little to gain for myself and for others.” (103)
“Almost everything is ashes. What I have prized the most is ashes. What I have attended to least is, perhaps, a little solid.” (121)
“ A Prayer to Dorothy Day
O Dorothy, I think of you and the beat people and the ones with nothing and the poor in virtue, the very poor, the ones no one can respect. I am not worthy to say I love all of you. Intercede for me, a stuffed shirt in a place of stuffed shirts and a big dumb phony, who has tried to be respectable and has succeeded. What a deception! I know, of course, that you are respected, too, but you have a right to be. You didn't jump into the most respectable possible situation and then tell everyone about it. I am worried about all this, but I am not beating myself over the head. I just think that, for the love of God, I should say it, and that, for the love of God, you should pray for me.” (159)
“A Prayer to Mary Luke Tobin
Pray for me to be a real good hermit and listen to the word of God and respond like a man. That is what it really involves: simply to stand on one's feet before one's Father and reply to Him in the Spirit. This busincss about replying to the Father in the Spirit may sound like big talk but I don't mean it that way. "In the Spirit,) in any context I know of, means flat on your face. How one can stand on one’s own feet and be flat on one’s face at the same time is a mystery I will have to try to work out by living it.” (167)
“O silence, golden zero
Unsetting sun
Love winter when the plant says nothing” (183)
April 18, 2021
I just love how Merton is constantly bogged down by his material desires in his heartfelt and intense quest for god. He seems like a pretty self aware person who prides his writing but is constantly reminding himself to not be prideful and live for his God.
I'm agnostic but I could relate with his constant inner turmoil and startling honesty with which he writes. Some of it was kinda boring to me (maybe because I don't really care for traditional Christian sermon style idk what you call them) but he was indeed a skilful writer. Hope he found what he wanted in life.
I'm agnostic but I could relate with his constant inner turmoil and startling honesty with which he writes. Some of it was kinda boring to me (maybe because I don't really care for traditional Christian sermon style idk what you call them) but he was indeed a skilful writer. Hope he found what he wanted in life.
February 24, 2018
The important point with this book is to not rush through it. One could read it over the course of a few hours, but to really take in the prayers and writings of Merton takes time.
I was surprised by how some of the writings challenged me in my own spiritual life. I thought I would connect with Merton very easily, but to relate to his search for silence and emptiness was more of a struggle for me.
I was surprised by how some of the writings challenged me in my own spiritual life. I thought I would connect with Merton very easily, but to relate to his search for silence and emptiness was more of a struggle for me.
November 18, 2022
I believe the reason I am so touched by Merton and admire his being, and especially his words is
I see a reflection of myself in him
A reflection of my spirituality
but only an aspiration to be like Merton with his passions and thoughts.
aspiration out of admiration for his spirituality
really, what I aspire for is you, God
I have learned this from Merton. Thank you.
Bismillah, amen.
I see a reflection of myself in him
A reflection of my spirituality
but only an aspiration to be like Merton with his passions and thoughts.
aspiration out of admiration for his spirituality
really, what I aspire for is you, God
I have learned this from Merton. Thank you.
Bismillah, amen.
March 13, 2025
Collected from Merton's journal, these drawings and meditations show a man longing to merge his soul back into the Great Spirit of the Cosmos. It is a love letter with drawings. Reading it, I was inspired by his simple illustrations and his pure heart.
I'll admit, I could not keep up with it. After a while, my eyes began to blur from the reading because it was all about one thing (see above). But I don't fault him for that; I ran out of stamina.
I'll admit, I could not keep up with it. After a while, my eyes began to blur from the reading because it was all about one thing (see above). But I don't fault him for that; I ran out of stamina.
June 2, 2023
Merton’s drawings are spare, but expressive. A bit repetitive. The prayers are also repetitive and have the thrust of wanting to be rid of self to fuse with the Divine. I think it could have been more interesting to me if the prayers were in chronological order to show the growth in his prayer life. It also would have been helpful to me to have some context to the prayers.
November 3, 2025
I enjoyed every page! Merton has always had a way of speaking to me and this was no exception. I felt as though I was eavesdropping on his conversations with God. It’s almost like reading his personal diary and listening to his prayers. Each page gives an intimate glimpse into both his faith and his relationship with God.
October 26, 2020
Loved it. A collection of thought and prayers from a Trappist Monk. All the words are rich. You can feel an immediate connection with what he is speaking. Wonderful for meditation. Beautiful as well to adapt into your prayer life.
January 1, 2022
During my study of Thomas Merton in 2021, I discovered this book on our shelves. It became my devotional read for some time. The poems by Merton accompanied by his drawings (which I didn't know he did!) were absolutely meditative and lovely. The binding and layout of the book set the tone well.
December 16, 2025
I love Thomas Merton but this little book was more depressing than uplifting. Enjoyed the drawings, but the prayers were repetitive as I guess there were a dark night of the soul as he tried to figure things out.
December 22, 2025
A collection of prayers from a variety of Merton's works. Prayers characterized by eloquent piety, down-to-earth matter-of-factness, and even a little obscure abstraction. A quick read, great for finding a few words of prayer to begin gatherings or use in personal devotions.
February 23, 2018
This book is really beautiful. I read it much too quickly! This is definitely one to be savored on the next read.
January 29, 2020
Thomas Merton's ink drawing and reflections in page after page, challenges the reader to reflect on your own life
June 30, 2022
silence is life
Morton’s words have helped me enter into a deeper relationship with myself and God. I appreciate the time I get to spend with such a critical thinker.
Morton’s words have helped me enter into a deeper relationship with myself and God. I appreciate the time I get to spend with such a critical thinker.
June 12, 2023
Different stream of the faith but such helpful insights and encouragements from this collection. Well worth a slow read!
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January 19, 2025I wish I had a physical copy of this book so I could pray across time and space with Thomas. Very beautiful. I may have read it too quickly.
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December 19, 2020Wonderful prayerbook. Especially the drawings are very powerful. I think it is even more valuable if you read The Seven Storey Mountain first.
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