Join Jung Eun Sophia Park on her personal quest for God and her true self through the writings of Thomas Merton. Approaching Merton as an Asian immigrant feminist in the postcolonial era, Park's perspective is a unique one, and in this dance sometimes it is her and sometimes Merton who leads. Throughout, Eastern and Western spirituality are organically woven together in reflection on Merton's narratives and in the examination of late capitalism, poverty, beauty, and violence. These reflections are insightful, provocative, and illuminating, particularly with regard to his androcentric spirituality, especially as it relates to his relationships with women.

Join Jung Eun Sophia Park on her personal quest for God and her true self through the writings of Thomas Merton. Approaching Merton as an Asian immigrant feminist in the postcolonial era, Park's perspective is a unique one, and in this dance sometimes it is her and sometimes Merton who leads. Throughout, Eastern and Western spirituality are organically woven together in reflection on Merton's narratives and in the examination of late capitalism, poverty, beauty, and violence. These reflections are insightful, provocative, and illuminating, particularly with regard to his androcentric spirituality, especially as it relates to his relationships with women. Jung Eun Sophia Park is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Holy Names University, USA. She is the author of Conversations at the Well: Emerging Religious Life in the 21st Century in the Global World (2018) and editor of Interreligous Pedagogy: Reflections and Application in Honor of Judith Berling (2018). Jung Eun Sophia Park is a member of of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

The author describes the reasons for his trip to Asia and reflects on the constrictions of the monastic life.

With the election of a new Abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton enters a period of unprecedented freedom, culminating in the opportunity to travel to California, Alaska, and finally the Far East – journeys that offer him new possibilities and causes for contemplation. In his last days at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events of the sixties, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. In Southeast Asia, he meets the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist and Catholic monks and discovers a rare and rewarding kinship with each. The final year is full of excitement and great potential for Merton, making his accidental death in Bangkok, at the age of fifth-three, all the more tragic.

A collection of essays that reflect, explore, and expand on wisdom and sustainable truth, each chapter in Wisdom of Our Elders focuses on an aspect of a wisdom tradition with an application for modern knowledge. The chapters are based on relevant and relatable lessons and concepts using experiences, poetry, scripture, and sacred text. The content represents a mosaic of several cultural and religious experiences, wisdom traditions, and many vibrant voices.

Previously unpublished material from world-renowned Trappist monk and author, Thomas Merton, featuring the final conference talks given in the United States before his untimely death. In May and October of 1968, Thomas Merton offered two extended conferences at Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey, a Cistercian women’s community in Northern California. Comprising over twenty-six hours of previously unpublished material, Thomas Merton in California covers a variety of topics including ecology and consciousness, yoga and Hinduism, Native American ritual and rites of passage, Sufi spirituality, and inter-religious dialogue, along with extended discussions on prayer and the contemplative life. The material presented in these talks reveals Merton’s wide-ranging intellectual and spiritual pursuits in the final year of his life, and fills a long-standing lacuna around Merton's visits to Redwoods Monastery, forming a necessary bridge to the Asian journey that was to come. Practical and applicable, as well as searching and inspired, Thomas Merton in California is essential for Merton readers and scholars, and all those interested in deepening their spiritual lives.