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Sarah Masters reviews the film

Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton

The voice of author, social activist, poet, and monk Thomas Merton, who died suddenly at the age of 53, resonates in the recently released documentary Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton.

Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Atkinson traces Merton’s spiritual path from boozy jazz clubs in New York to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Merton lived in relative isolation as a Trappist monk for close to 30 years. The camera captures monastery life and the beauty of nature so influential in shaping Merton’s spiritual quest.

Over time, Merton agitated for more and more solitude, all the while, paradoxically, emerging as a public figure. As many Chaplains are aware, Merton first gained fame with his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which described his conversion to Catholicism and his decision to take vows as a monk. He wrote: “I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both.”

Soul Searching is a meditation on Merton’s life as seen through the eyes of Merton’s friends and Merton scholars. Their observations provide insight into his internal struggles, as he questioned his faith, discovered certainty, then questioned again, and grew into what many have called a “spiritual giant of modern times.”

In his role as a public figure and social activist, Merton wrote frequently about war and the nuclear arms race until he was silenced by his superiors. They told him that he could only address issues concerning peace. His missives about war, the arms race, and peace are quoted in voiceover narration with comments from those who knew him best. This film is an intimate portrait of this courageous and prescient man.

Completed: 2007
Running Time: 67 Minutes
Director: Morgan Atkinson

If you are interested in purchasing this film, you can do so at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/104-0028722-6007167?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=soul+searching+the+journey+of+thomas+merton. The cost of the film is $30.00 for a DVD.

Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to cultivation, support, production and distribution of the best documentaries and audio meditations on world religions, spirituality, ethics and well-being.

Book Review

Rev. Suzanne Hope Graham reviews

Walking With Grief – A Healing Journey

“Grief when it comes,” writes Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, “is nothing like we expect it to be.” Well, yes and no. We react profoundly and instinctively to our losses immediately after they occur and are usually only able to reflect and make connections much later. Those who have endured the death of a spouse or child can nurture the raw wound for quite some time before allowing it to begin to heal. We possess that pain and hold it close and, sometimes it seems, only give it up reluctantly. Then we begin our own journeys toward renewed wholeness, albeit changed forever.

Walking With Grief – A Healing Journey, although a slim book, is a generous gift from both Nanette Geertz, who wrote the poem, and Annette Ierardi, who illustrated it. Nanette Geertz, a congregational pastor, lost her daughter, Jennifer, suddenly at the age of 19. This was written sometime after Jennifer’s death. Later, Nanette herself died of breast cancer.

This poem is her search to make sense and give meaning not only to the life and loss of Jennifer, but to her own sadness. She looks for connections with the world around her and finds Jennifer’s essence and her own consolation there: “kitten, do you know where my jennifer is? no, but you may use my playfulness to remember her laughter” and on another page, “sunrise, have you seen my daughter? no, but today is a new day for loving her still.” She is able to put Jennifer in the continuum of creation, with all God’s creatures, with those who have been, are now and are yet to come. That is what we want for those we have lost, too. The generosity of Nanette Geertz is that she gently leads us there. Her world is filled with what is in ours: rain, stars, wind, a budding tree. She shows us that we can find our own comfort through her words and not only understand her journey, but deepen the dimensions of our own. She reminds us to look around, make connections, and remember.

The reproductions of Annette Ierardi’s paintings are on a par with those found in museum catalogues. They are original and thought provoking and add immensely to the text. At the back of the book, there are three pages of interesting notes about the paintings and an additional four pages for “notes, reflections, or poems.”

This is a valuable book for individual reflection and would be extremely useful as a jumping off place for discussion and sharing in bereavement groups.

Walking With Grief – A Healing Journey – Poem by Nanette Geertz, Illustrations by Anne Ierardi. Healthsigns Center, Inc., 408 Main Street, Yarmouthport, MA 02675; Website: amifinearts.com, pp 40.

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