Run to The Mountain

My journey with Merton began with reading "The Seven Storey Mountain" but that book, though I enjoyed it thoroughly, left me with the feeling something was missing. Then I learned SSM did undergo a certain level of editing/censorship by his superiors that possibly changed the tenor of the book. Eventually I learned about Merton's journals, extensive journals, covering most of his lifetime and published, as stipulated by his will, many years after his death. The journals take up seven volumes. This book is the first.Reading it definitely gives me the mostly unvarnished Merton I sought. I say "mostly" because he sometimes edited himself, tearing out pages after he wrote them. It was fascinating to observe him in his formative 20s. His brash reviews of the art he saw at the World's Fair in Queens and the books he'd read showed a brilliant mind at work, often with a youthful impatience. But the youthful Merton could also be tedious and melodramatic, especially toward the end of this journal which stops right before he enters the Trappist monastery Gethsemane.I won't blame Merton for this--in fact it endears him to me more because he proves to be no different than other brash, confused young men. I loved his account of his travel to Cuba, of the saints he becomes enamored with, and his struggle to figure out how exactly he's meant to serve God. His drawings were pretty funny too! This volume is a great beginning and makes me look forward to reading the remaining 6.

This volume helps one to see who the man was, with his strengths as well as his imperfections, who would become one of the greatest spiritual writers of the 20th century.

I ordered the Merton journals after reading a selection of them presented in a couple of books. One was The Intimate Merton, His Life from His Journals (edited by Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo) and the other was A Year with Thomas Merton. Especially the Intimate Merton gave a biography through journal entries. I wanted to move more deeply into his experiences he recorded in his journals and began with Volume One. His early journal entries in Run to the Mountain give his early thoughts and feelings. Some of these of course are captured in his autobiography. It was interesting to see a closer picture of this man moving toward his vocation.