This week, I finished reading Thomas Merton in Alaska (see Connecting Communities blog post).
It brought back memories of my travels to Alaska, after completing field work in the Canadian Rockies in the early ‘70’s. Merton died in Bangkok in 1968.
The book includes essays on ‘Community, Politics and Contemplation’, ‘Prayer, Tradition and Experience’ and ‘The Life that Unifies’.
The book provides background to the recent Emergence Magazine article ‘On the Road with Thomas Merton’ by Fred Bahnson. Within the article, there is a link to a film by Jeremy Seifert, under the same name.
”In May 1968, Christian mystic Thomas Merton undertook a pilgrimage to the American West. Fifty years later, filmmaker Jeremy Seifert set out to follow Merton’s path retracing the monk’s journey across the landscape. Amid stunning backdrops of ocean, redwood and canyon, the film features the faces and voices of people Merton encountered.”
”The film shares a remarkable geography, as well as the perceptions of Merton who took his first extended trip away from Gethsemani Abbey, his monastic home in Kentucky.”
References
Emergence Magazine, Fred Bahnson’s, On the Road with Thomas Merton, includes a link to Jeremy Seifert film, On the Road with Thomas Merton.
Thomas Merton, 1988, Thomas Merton in Alaska. Prelude to the Asian Journey, New Directions Books.
Ernest Blair Experiment 