Eighteen Poems

...Of course sexual shame is much worse, Merton was brave enough This Mind Be In You (Seabury...

...I am saying Storey Mountain to the questioning and WILLIAM H. SLAVICK is a Benedictine oblate that where sexual experience is so rev- angry activist of Conjectures of a Guilty who teaches at the University of Southern elatory, it is so in the delightful way in Bystander to the Buddhist proselyte of Maine...

...And have referred...

...Catholic Worker 521.95 pbk And that's that...

...But when the older have still another "new Merton...

...They represent a tribute book's singular fame among twentieth- tant contribution to a politics that limits to a young woman he loved desperately century religious autobiographies the possibility of nuclear war and permits and add still another cubit to his continu- Kramer sees as deriving from Merton's democratic control of technology...

...GORDON ZAHN Cross says, "Now many priests will tell lies in order to marry" but concludes, ",Musto'S hook is not only spiritually nourishing...

...council's hands and given to a papal It was very nearly bridged at that historic The sharp difference between the tone of commission, whose virtually unanimous moment during Vatican II, to which I Pius XI's Casti Connubii (1930) and that vote for change was ignored...

...No, the theme of Eighteen Poems is not painful soul PARENTING FOR PEACE JUSTICE AND PEACE searching, but the roller coaster of love...

...he tain are indicative of Kramer's method...

...the prose can Feher and Heller's objective is to entering Gethsemani...

...Hall, $17.95, 181 pp...

...movement has raised legitimate critiknew his true calling...

...EILEEN F:GAN...

...poetry - but in the context of what was their essential relationship...

...With this New Directions, $200, Limited conscience and when old answers no behind us, let me sum up my critique, Edition, Unfolioed longer measured up, Merton was not one and then set that in this wider context...

...is finally working out...

...You can know individualism and the materialism of but also tasting profound loneliness...

...They contend that Euromyriad connections, Monica Furlong careful account ranges from the formal pean antinuclearists have been excesand Michael Mott treat his books as language of contemplation to the anec- sively critical of American policy and not milestones on the way...

...This has already been seen, they Commonweal: 604...

...The poetry gets 154 pp...

...he was in constant more readily speak for itself...

...Bishop Butler said to me at the time, "What it comes down to is that the hierarchies are protecting their flocks Tasting the terrible sweetness from the pope...

...It is necessary EIGHTEEN POEMS Indeed, the demands of his own mind and to set the work under review in the con- Thomas Merton spirit required a continual examination of text of recent church history...

...When he dove into something, Musto's survey of Church teachings be it contemplation or chopping wood or and practice with respect to war and studying Sufism, he went at it with great peace makes it a valuable resource for gusto...

...His latest book is Let this attitude...

...to hold onto them very long...

...Virginia Commonwealth University...

...He felt more alone than he had since relatively more attention...

...A correct read- And, as he did with every other turn in SEBASTIAN MOORE, O.S.B...

...THE CATHOLIC This "war," the obvious conflict bePEACE tween remaining a monk or marrying this young woman is, as might be expected of TRADITION Merton, not the major theme of these by RONALD G. MUSTO poems...

...On the contrary, by man, a patient, falls in love with his The poems were written in 1966 and inverting the text's order of shame and nurse, and happens to be a cloistered entrusted to his longtime friend and New lust, he gets from the text a downgrading Trappist monk, and additionally one of Directions publisher, James Laughlin, of sexual experience...

...storytelling talent, his gradual unfolding But the vast bulk of the argument foof his life, the continuing air of anticipa- cuses on the flaws of the European wing tion, and his success in encouraging of the movement...

...felt able to reverse the trend that followed Connubii...

...In sum, the reason why the pope's Paul Wilkes And so we have this beautifully pubbiblical mirror to sexuality does not show lished, quite limited edition of poems, sexual experience as we know it, fallen 0 LDER MEN have been attracted to most of them written to or about "M.," a though we are, as valid and revelatory of younger women before, patients to student nurse he met while hospitalized God, is that where the biblical text shows their nurses...

...Merton's course as he moves from book DOOMSDAY OR DETERRENCE...

...A gap of justified, by the fact of the Fall, whereas cance...

...the books to be read...

...Commonweal: 602 Eighteen Poems has a narrative drive Your saving body A little jejune: all its own, the story of a man who, in its Overwhelmed: It is midnight early pages, writes only half capriciously You have come "Because I am always broken I obey my So the lovers teach April stars Bringing the truth I need nurse," and goes on to find that she is the To riot rebel and follow faithless You stand over my hell center of his life: courses I wake with a cry and loud tears And it doesn't matter For another day in which I can My dark house is full of comets The seed is not afraid Again breathe, work a little, Of winter or the terrible sweetness Write something And finally, resigned: Of spring's convivial nightmare (If I write for you Or the hot surprise and dizzy spark Love has another I can write something) Of their electric promise...

...The gulf is always there...

...At mid point in the poems, he tells meeting the charge of the 1983 U.S...

...They also think that its critique of chronicle of those golden days in the au- ceipt of grace - in unforeseen ways...

...cises, readings, and worksheets to...

...lar attention to Merton's interest in the that works to the advantage of the Soviet Kramer's book is the necessary com- limits of language, especially in writing Union...

...the hay is revelatory of God...

...Kramer's briefer study, unnoticed in the reassured that the monastery is not Further, the movement has given little wake of Mott's, assesses Merton's other another world altogether...

...world, one can find meaning only in the even those few hours...

...The authors maintain In brief others in their spiritual quest through his that the activists' use of fear has fostered account of his own - partly through "a a "Sarajevo mentality" when there is THOMAS MERTON, by VictorA Kramer...

...AND JUSTICE EDUCATION by KATHLEEN and Models for College and God is only mentioned in the vein of JAMES McGINNIS University Faculty "thank God we have each other, our Edited by DAVID M. JOHNSON "The guide is filled with exerlove, a sunrise...

...I overwhelming as perhaps - and such that this was a man who never escaped am saying that we have to learn from it, postulation is foolish at best - any mys- his human nature while seeking the diand that we do not learn from it by pro- tical experience or sublime insight he re- vine...

...At risk of our fallenness to consist in a downgrad- about the kindling of love in a firebox using the rubber stamp once more: we ing of sexual experience, the pope does unused to such heat...

...not follow the text...

...Whenever the Vatican talks of admirers and detractors, upon opening fessor in the political science department at sex, it never seems to have in mind what his latest book, to see a "new Merton...

...during his years at Gethsemani - from director, and co-producer of the PBS docuAnd I am not saying that any old roll in the ardent arch-Catholic of The Seven mentary, Merton...

...evidence of knowing how the transition vocation - as a writer, the calling he had Kramer's studies of Elizabeth Madox from the present Cold War to its vision of confidently answered as a layman and Roberts (from the adjacent Kentucky perpetual peace would be managed...

...PAUL WILKES, the author of Merton By theology that fails, to see further than this Merton grew and changed incredibly Those Who Knew Him Best, was the writer, is not faithful to the "oracles of God...

...Here," From book to book, Kramer notes, the otherwise occurring in his life...

...To anyone who is wondering Nearly all the national hierarchies, in Humanae Vitae, namely the benign at- how this can happen, I would commend a their pastoral epilogues, tried to give to titude of national hierarchies to con- close study of Mary Durkin's profound the judgment of the married a crucial traception, which has been authority's work...

...These poems, with Merton locates himself in Dante's Pur- cisms of President Reagan's irresponsino apology to his order, his enormous gatorio, carefully organizing his earlier ble management of Soviet-American republic or his searching soul, serve as a life in the frame of the need for and re- lations...

...They acknowledge that the M. He would not leave the Trappists...

...Ever make anybody happy...

...He had wanted to Thomas Merton does not attempt a mystery of an encounter with God at the be a hermit and they wanted to afford him thorough analysis of 40-odd volumes and center of one's being...

...This is not a digression...

...Merton the as if we were on the brink of a global In focusing on Merton's life and his writer has passed into the cloister, and his nuclear war...

...role...

...moting the very attitude of shame at sex ceived in his lifetime...

...M. E. Sharpe, $12.95, probation of his fellow monks...

...Policy in Central America Four wet eyes and cool lips by JACK NELSON-PALLMEYER And worshipping hands "An excellent introduction in At bookstores or from the publisher simple language to one of the Erotic: most critical contemporary probORBIS BOOKS Maryknoll, NY 10545 lems...

...But a to write about it and want it public...

...Such a book too mediate effect...

...In a lonely and troubled their best not to welcome him back for Mott's is not...

...Abbott Flavian Burns, Merton's one- root problem for Merton is modern man's In 1966, he had spent a year as a her- time student then abbot, has observed, malaise - his absorption in economic mit, relishing the freedom it afforded, "is the Merton I knew...

...Rather, Kramer charts was beloved by his community...

...teaches theology ing of the text will demote, not promote, his life, this time surely risking scorn and at Boston College...

...It must be recalled, ciologically demonstrated - a far great- between the sexual reality and sexual now that the supreme authority seems to er exodus of people from the Amer- theologizing, that the present pope has be recovering the confidence of Casti ican church than any other single factor...

...Into this gap came the young nurse Merton continued developing as a poet to the perspective of a democratic socialist M. the end, becoming more experimental, politics dedicated to the maintenance of Before he left for the Far East in 1968, and how his prose mellows, recognizes life and the enhancement of freedom...

...Poems have been written for a painful neck problem...

...In short, he reads the text about the time Thomas Merton was soon after Merton's death would have as justifying the attitude which the text is celebrating his twenty-fifth year as a certainly blunted the impact of his other telling us we must deplore...

...He was not a whiner or com- "The comprehensive sweep of plainer...

...the more real...

...which it happens...

...ment's contribution to these goals has Bangkok) he had resolved the question of The pages given Seven Storey Moun- been mixed...

...of the national hierarchies following the Humanae Vitae reiterated the ban on con- It is because his interpretation of birth control encyclical has not been suftraception, causing - it has been so- Genesis reinstates, reestablishes this gulf ficiently marked...

...Place of its own Try to exist (If I am yours I can exist) EDUCATING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE Even though I am at war with my own heart...

...part and parcel of our condition...

...tone of near amazement that everything "absolutely no reason to feel and behave G.K...

...We see how analyze the antinuclear movement from pain...

...He sees the the spiritual giants of our time, such with the request that they would be pubdowngrading of sexual experience as poems certainly take on an added signifi- lished after the author's death...

...every chance to be one...

...ally growing stature...

...This was not numerous essays or an analysis of Mer- WILLIAM H. SLAVICK done out of spite or jealousy, for Merton ton's spirituality...

...The industrial civilization could be an importumn of his life...

...a standard resource for all Merton, at the age of fifty-one, was supplement the reading of the who seek to introduce peace plainly stricken, and in the poems he is hook and makes its contents all studies into higher education.alternately eloquent...

...of a dream in which Father John of the bishops' peace pastoral to 'teach the ways Of peace...

...on what would be his last journey (to die the complexity of things, deepens in They believe that the antinuclear moveof an accidental electrocution in compassion...

...indispensable -BETTY REARDON...

...Victor A. dotal, ironic, and amusing: the reader is sufficiently realistic about Soviet aims...

...Trappist, and to him it was apparently as works...

...in the misuse and not so much within the body of Merton's Merton worked out in his writing, his abuse of language all around us...

...some eighteen years between writing and this downgrading is the Fall in its im- The true love of his life appeared at publication is fortuitous...

...it isalst anabsttlutelvindispensablesourceofbackBut when did such knowledge ground--and hope-for the Catholic peacemaker...

...The birth people experience as sex, what they ex- way of admitting, at last, the laity's excontrol question was taken out of the perience sex as...

...ON THE plainly missed some aspects of commu- to book, identifying new interests and ANTINUCLEAR ISSUE, by Ferenc Feher nity life, the support, friendship, and ap- directions and qualities of style, leaving and Agnes Heller...

...Teachers We with tender liturgy for educators and families alike.'' College, Columbia University -Religious Education $6.95 pbk $16.95 pbk And tears Of the newborn Celebrate the first creation THE POLITICS OF Of solemn love COMPASSION A Biblical Perspective on Now for the first time forever Hunger, The Arms Race, and Made by God in these U.S...

...REVIEWERS that results from the Fall...

...GARYMacEOIN 38.95pbk I cling to the round hull VISA and MC accepted Of your hips and cry Lend me for God's love Your lifeboat 7 November 1986: 603 It is important to look at these poems plement to Mott's in examining how of contemplation...

...Thomas Merton best through his writ- mass society, his effort to go it alone, When he did go to the monastery for ing," he explains, so that "here we have fearfully guarding hiding places from meals or to say Mass, other monks did an interior biography," as he finds God and himself...

...perience as crucial in this whole affair...

...and in other poems - for the insights they pro- testing ground, his understanding of con- the contribution of language - and writvide into the man are far more important templation and his responsibility to the ing' - to his own intellectual and than how they measure up as good or bad sick world beyond the cloister - and spiritual growth...

...Now, it shows even more vividly I am not saying we can undo the Fall...

...This is the crux, of his Asian Journal - causing both his ROBERT D. HOLS WORTH is an associate procourse...

...pursued steadily during his twenty-seven county), Carolyn Gordon, James Agee, Feher and Heller believe that all these years as a monk, including fourteen as and Walker Percy anticipate his particu- tendencies reflect a pervasive defeatism master of students or of novices...