This is a 25 minute talk by Peter Dale Scott on Thomas Merton, the catholic priest, Trappist monk, writer of over 70 books, poet, and social activist. Scott, best known for his writings on foreign policy, the CIA and the drug trade, shares many of the complexities that have made Thomas Merton, who died in 1968, so intriguing. To this day Thomas Merton’s name and writings are associated with the acceptance of the spiritual traditions of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Sufism by western spiritual thinkers and poets such as Thoreau, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and Rilke. The spiritual and literary connections that Scott lays out in this talk are interwoven with not just Merton’s ideas on mutual respect, inner and outer peace, liberation theology, and Gandhian nonviolence – but with the vision for a cultural societal as well as a personal change that can bring about a peaceful world.
This is a fascinating survey of the rich history of mutually inspiring contact between the living traditions of the East and West that now have been suffocated in the war on terror. Literary and spiritual contacts that are essential for world peace have been broken by war. And in that sense a talk on Merton is a talk on the road to peace – especially from a poet and political writer such as Scott who knows so much about war.
code A343DVD: To order a 40 minute DVD click here: $14.00
