“THOMAS MERTON AND THE AWFUL SILENCE”

Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 4 pm

Vanderbilt Divinity School, Room G-20

Victor Judge, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, Vanderbilt Divinity School

In a journal entry dated September 1, 1949, Thomas Merton wrote, “ If I am to be a saint—and there is nothing else that I can think of desiring to be—it seems that I must get there by writing books in a Trappist monastery. If I am to be a saint, I have not only to be a monk…but I must also put down on paper what I have become. It may sound simple, but it is not an easy vocation.” The lecture “The Awful Silence” will address Merton’s interpretation of the role of the  Christian writer in the modern world and his understanding that “monk and writer” are not mutually exclusive callings.