A bibliographical note: Merton's complete journal as emblem of the spiritual journey.

Merton's journals, which are published in fifteen different volumes, all of which are in print, are a very important resource about him for today's readers and spiritual seekers. While no explicit examination of Merton's three decades-long project of intense journal writing is provided within either of these current CrossCurrents issues, these pages are fundamental to understanding him. This voluminous journal as an emblem of the twentieth century seeker's pilgrimage is crucial.

Merton was an artist and an enthusiastic convert who became a compassionate contemplative standing at the Abyss of God's Love. His journal is an exceedingly important part of that history. The journals from 1939 to 1968, unlike Thoreau's sometimes tedious recounting of a familiar path day-by-day, or the detailed daily reports of Samuel Pepys's observations, provide us not with a "record of a soul" such as John XXIII's notes. Rather, Merton's journal records his continuing struggle with the vocation he embraced and redefined. Such is the job of all of us who struggle within a post-Christian culture to balance a call from God and our call to society.

Merton's vocation was to seek a closer union with God, while in the process he affirmed the mystery of living through the surprising twentieth century. To compare this Thomas Merton as chronicler, to the figure of the "failure" portrayed in Henry Adams's The Education of Henry Adams might well be appropriate. Adams noted that he was born, in 1838, in the nineteenth century, yet educated in the eighteenth century while he was forced to live in the twentieth. Merton, with the temperament of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the strength of John Henry Newman, as well as the inquisitiveness of a Werner Heisenberg was born into the twentieth century, yet to a large degree he was educated in the nineteenth. His vast letter writing and sustained journal prove this. He found the leisure to examine his changing world. His prophetic contemplative stance became one of a person who is living for the twenty-first century. Thus, he remains important on many different levels: as writer, believer, poet, priest, teacher, ecumenist, and cultural critic.

In his densely packed autograph journals, a spiritual record of his journey toward a God of mercy is lovingly revealed. These 3,500 (seven volumes) record this aspiring writer/lover's engagement with the wonder of life and living as well as his simultaneous engagement year-by-year as he clarified what it meant for him to be a contemplative within this secular culture. (1) To read these journals is to see the writer being a truly committed Christian, open not just to Church and Christ, but always becoming ever more open to all persons and all cultures over which the Holy Spirit broods. This is quite apparent in each of the four volumes that Merton prepared for the press. (2)

Together Merton's fifteen different journal volumes constitute an elaborate mosaic which suggests his continuing sustained spiritual journey. These many entries are clearly, as well, a collection of resources for future readers and scholars.

Notes

(1.) Merton's seven volumes of autograph journals were published posthumously: Run to the Mountain, 1939-1941; Entering the Silence, 1942-1952; Seeking Solitude, 1953-1959; Turning Toward the World, 1960-1963; Dancing in the Water of Life, 1964-1965; Learning to Love, 1966-1967; and The Other Side of the Mountain, 1968. These journals constitute approximately thirty-five hundred pages in print. Selections were edited by Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo as The Intimate Merton. All these books are published by HarperSanFrancisco.

(2.) Merton edited and revised selections of his journal as Secular Journal; The Sign of Jonas; A Vow of Conversation; and Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Three other selections from his journals of 1968 were also edited posthumously. These are (1) The Alaskan journal; (2) Woods, Shore, & Desert; (3) The Asian Journal.