Podcast
On Being with Krista Tippett
The speaker found Merton's autobiography impactful due to its powerful narrative and genuine search for faith, creating a sense of both strangeness and recognition, particularly for Catholic readers. The speaker was deeply moved by Merton's journey from disbelief to Catholicism and his eventual decision to become a Trappist monk.
I bought the Seven Story Mountain, one summer day, a couple of years later, in the middle of an internship. What year are we talking here? This is the mid-80s, that was in 1985. It took the book home,...
— Episode: Paul Elie — Faith Fired by Literature
Episode: Paul Elie — Faith Fired by Literature
The speaker found Merton's autobiography impactful due to its powerful narrative and genuine search for faith, creating a sense of both strangeness and recognition, particularly for Catholic readers. The speaker was deeply moved by Merton's journey from disbelief to Catholicism and his eventual decision to become a Trappist monk.
I bought the Seven Story Mountain, one summer day, a couple of years later, in the middle of an internship. What year are we talking here? This is the mid-80s, that was in 1985. It took the book home, which has knocked out by it.
As so many people have been the power of the narrative, the genuineness of his searching, but especially for the Catholic reader. This sense of strangeness and recognition.
Here's this guy who comes from no belief at all, who becomes a Catholic, and then the next thing you know he's becoming a trapeze monk. And reading the book as a Catholic you think, is this really my religion? It sounds just so wonderfully strange and powerful.
I was just knocked out by it, and I tried to follow his path really for a year, so I made a little space in the library that was a kind of monastic meditation space with books all around.