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A review by chaosmavin
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
4.0
One of the times I saw the Dalai Lama speak he said "One should always be the religion of their culture...they should seek to know of all faiths but you must be from where you are from." I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea. I being an X Catholic or as one of my friends says "I'm a cultural Catholic"...really struggle with. I am Italian and was raised in a Roman Catholic church but at a young aged struggled with what felt to me very hypocritical teachings. I have recently discovered Merton and this is the first book I have read. I do not think I would ever return to the catholic church (Only God knows that) but I find in Merton's teaching that which would have and does resinate with me quite deeply.
This book is really about his journey to finding God and in it there are many wise incites and teachings but it ends very much in his first years as a monk and was written just five years into his service. I think it is intended and reads more like a biography then spiritual text, but is still rich in spiritual incite. I will be curious to read some of his later writings now.
I was particularly moved to tears by his poem about his brother below and am saving it here so I can find it again:
Sweet brother, if I do not sleep
My eyes are flowers for your tomb;
And if I cannot eat my bread,
My fasts shall live like willows where you died.
If in the heat I find no water for my thirst,
My thirst shall turn to springs for you, poor traveller.
Where, in what desolate and smokey country,
Lies your poor body, lost and dead?
And in what landscape of disaster
Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?
Come, in my labor find a resting place
And in my sorrows lay your head,
Or rather take my life and blood
And buy yourself a better bed–
Or take my breath and take my death
And buy yourself a better rest.
When all the men of war are shot
And flags have fallen into dust,
Your cross and mine shall tell men still
Christ died on each, for both of us.
For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall fall
Into your weak and friendless hand,
And buy you back to your own land:
The silence of Whose tears shall fall
Like bells upon your alien tomb.
Hear them and come: they call you home.
This book is really about his journey to finding God and in it there are many wise incites and teachings but it ends very much in his first years as a monk and was written just five years into his service. I think it is intended and reads more like a biography then spiritual text, but is still rich in spiritual incite. I will be curious to read some of his later writings now.
I was particularly moved to tears by his poem about his brother below and am saving it here so I can find it again:
Sweet brother, if I do not sleep
My eyes are flowers for your tomb;
And if I cannot eat my bread,
My fasts shall live like willows where you died.
If in the heat I find no water for my thirst,
My thirst shall turn to springs for you, poor traveller.
Where, in what desolate and smokey country,
Lies your poor body, lost and dead?
And in what landscape of disaster
Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?
Come, in my labor find a resting place
And in my sorrows lay your head,
Or rather take my life and blood
And buy yourself a better bed–
Or take my breath and take my death
And buy yourself a better rest.
When all the men of war are shot
And flags have fallen into dust,
Your cross and mine shall tell men still
Christ died on each, for both of us.
For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall fall
Into your weak and friendless hand,
And buy you back to your own land:
The silence of Whose tears shall fall
Like bells upon your alien tomb.
Hear them and come: they call you home.