No Man Is An Island by Thomas Merton

Paperback:  "We are always asking, 'What is Truth?' and then crucifying the truth that stands before our eyes."

Here, in one of his most popular of his more than thirty books, Thomas Merton, one of the most influential and provocative spiritual writers of the twentieth century and hailed as a prophet during his lifetime, provides further meditations on the spiritual life in sixteen thoughtful essays, beginning with his classic treatise "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away."

This recapitulation of his earlier work, Seeds of Contemplation (1949), provides fresh insight into Merton's favorite topics of silence and solitude, love and hope, while also underscoring the importance of community, friendship, humility, spiritual loneliness, courage, and the deep connectedness to others that is the inevitable basis of the spiritual life - whether one lives in solitude or in the midst of a crowd.

No Man Is An Island was originally published in 1955. The book has sustained millions of readers with its extraordinary understanding of humanity and the divine and with its practical applicability to our lives.

About the author:  Thomas Merton was one of the most influential Catholic authors, a world-renowned religious philosopher and revered mystic of the 20th century. He was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis in 1949. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in the American state of Kentucky, Merton was an acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, poet, author, witness to peace and social/antiwar activist. Merton wrote over 60 books, scores of essays and reviews, and is the ongoing subject of many biographies. Merton was also a proponent of inter-religious dialogue, engaging in spiritual dialogues with the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and D T Suzuki. In 1963, he was awarded the Pax Medal for his writings on non-violence.

His life and career were suddenly cut short at age 53 in 1968, when he was electrocuted stepping out of his bath in Thailand. In 2018, Hugh Turley and David Martin published The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton: An Investigation, questioning the claim of accidental electrocution.