Seeking Paradise : The Spirit of the Shakers

by Merton, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9781570755019
• ISBN10: 1570755019
• Edition: Illus.
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Orbis Books

Summary

The essays, talks, and letters collected here - joined by a selection of Merton's own photographs of a Shaker village - present a haunting evocation of a lost tradition. In the Shakers' approach to work as a form of worship, in their practice of community, their simplicity and rejection of violence, and their profound witness to the Kingdom of God he found lessons for all Christians. In their prophetic departure from the American myth of progress, efficiency, and individualism, he found a message of enduring value and relevance for our time.

Author Biography

Thomas Merton, who died in 1968, was a Trappist monk and one of the great spiritual writers of the twentieth century Paul M. Pearson is Director and Archivist of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine College, Louisville, Kentucky

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 9
Seeking Paradise: Thomas Merton and the Shakers	p. 13
Pleasant Hill: A Shaker Village in Kentucky	p. 54
Introduction to Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture	p. 72
Work and the Shakers: A Transcript of a Conference Given by Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani on July 22, 1964	p. 90
Selected Correspondence	p. 106
Bibliography	p. 124
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