This past week saw me complete Thomas Merton's early autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. As an author, mystic, and theologian, Merton caught my interest during my time in seminary. One of my New Testament professors, Dr. M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., frequently referenced Merton's ideas pertaining to spiritual growth and development as regarding one's "false self" and "true self." This contact birthed a desire in me to explore these ideas further.
Since that time, I have not studied Merton as closely as I would like. In Kentucky, I had the opportunity to visit Gethsemani Abbey (the Trappist community where Merton resided) a couple of times; I have also read Merton's work, Contemplative Prayer, which I found simultaneously enlightening and baffling. During one of his classes, Dr. Mulholland led us through Merton's Opening the Bible, which I would heartily recommend to anyone who desires to study Scripture. I am also currently meandering through James Finley's Merton's Palace of Nowhere, which distills several of Merton's main ideas. I have found my brief experience with the works of Merton to be positive and look forward to continuing them.
The Seven Story Mountain was first published in 1948. In it, Merton explores his own life, freely revisiting his past experiences from his childhood to his first days at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey. Born in France, he grew up in Bermuda and England before attending college at Cambridge, then moving to the United States to finish his undergraduate work at Columbia. After simultaneously doing graduate work and pursuing a place within the Franciscan order, he finally settled down for a bit teaching English at St. Bonaventure. Experiences there reawakened his desire to pursue the priesthood, and prior positive encounters with Trappists drew him to that order.
Spiritually, Merton followed a winding road to his destination as a Trappist. Raised within a Protestant household, he rejected his spiritual upbringing in favor of a self-centered way of life. His account references his early college years in which he pursued drink, lively music, and carnal experiences. As he grew older, he began to find himself gradually attracted to the faith. Merton reveals his struggle with his own redemption as he relives his trials and battles with ill health, vocational uncertainty, and the ghosts of his own past; he also shares his relief and joy upon entering the monastery, as well as his experiences in the novitiate.
Personally, I found much to relate to within Merton's account. The wandering about while seeking one's vocation, the spiritual uncertainty as one strives to discover one's purpose, and the problems that ill health presents in these things all struck chords within me. I found myself also identifying with Merton's style of sharing pivotal life moments, experiences that served to direct his next steps; his experiences made me think of my own. Reading his redemption gives me hope for myself and others, that God is at work in our lives just as much as he was in Merton's.
I believe that those who read The Seven Storey Mountain will be able to find parallel experiences within their own lives as they hear Merton sharing his life with them. Reading this book proved to be both challenging and rewarding for me, and I recommend it without hesitation for both of these reasons. A brief note: the position of the writer is unapologetically Catholic in a pre-Vatican II world. Some sentiments come across as anti-Protestant, and many concepts and ideas are foreign to Protestants (praying to saints, the priestly hierarchy, etc.). If coming from a Protestant perspective, it is helpful to have an open and willing mind to embrace one's story told from an unfamiliar background when reading this work. That being said, Protestants would do well to explore the stories and beliefs of their Catholic brothers and sisters; The Seven Storey Mountain presents an ideal opportunity to do so.
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