Concurrent Sessions - 16th General Meeting
guide to concurrent Sessions
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Session A - Friday, June 28 - 8:45 AM - 10:15 AM
Session B - Friday, June 28 - 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Session C - Saturday, June 29 - 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Session D - Saturday, June 29 - 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Session E - Saturday, June 29 - 3:15 PM - 4:45 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 28
8:45 AM – 10:15 AM
A1. Merton and Writing
a.
Michael McGregor – "Making
Ourselves Heard: Lessons from Merton’s Approach to Principled Dissent and
Communal Renewal."
Michael N. McGregor is an ITMS board member and the author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax.
In “Peace: A Religious Responsibility,” Merton urged us to “make ourselves heard” on national issues, and his own outspoken opposition to racism, nuclear arms and war showed us how to do it. Refusing to be confined by dogma and religious language or compromised by the violent rhetoric of others, he found a middle way based on deep conviction, powerful oratory, and a consistent orientation toward hope and love.
b. Jamal
Lyksett – "Ex-Patriots
of the Church: Common Spiritual Threads of Thomas Merton and Simone Weil."
Jamal Lyksett teaches Philosophy at the University of
Idaho. His interests include
Eastern, Continental, and Catholic thought.
He lives in Moscow, Idaho with his family.
Thomas Merton and Simone Weil each called the church to
greater catholicity. Merton’s
cloistered and contemplative life and Weil’s radicalism and activity did not
prevent them from sharing a certain mysticism and a prophetic call against a
“patriotism” of the church. This
paper explores this spiritual siblinghood.
A2. Merton and Race Relations 1
a. Paul Dekar – "Thomas Merton on Racial Justice: Notes on the Road towards a New World."
Paul R. Dekar, is Professor Emeritus, Memphis Theological Seminary, wrote Thomas Merton: Twentieth Century Wisdom for Twenty-First Century Living (2011) and Dangerous People: The Fellowship of Reconciliation Building a Nonviolent World of Justice, Peace, and Freedom (2016).
Drawing on publications and correspondence with southern whites and blacks, I explore Merton’s advocacy for non-violent racial justice. His vision of a “new world” being born in which all God’s people are one remains prescient at a time when some seek to reverse civil rights advances of the 60s in the southern US.
b. Gray Matthews – "Merton and Decolonization."
Gray Matthews teaches Communication at the University of Memphis, coordinates the Memphis ITMS Chapter and has served the ITMS as co-editor of the Merton Annual and a member of the Board.
Merton’s contemplative insights into human action have much to contribute to global concerns regarding decolonizing the human mind and the world we struggle to live in together. The vital relevancy of decolonization for indigenous and nonindigenous people is illumined by Merton’s contemplative critique of domination in a world of action.
A3. Merton and the Ignatian Tradition / Dan Berrigan
a. Michael Plekon – "Communion and engagement: Merton, Berrigan, and liturgy at the November 1964 Gethsemani Retreat and beyond."
Michael Plekon is Professor Emeritus, Baruch College of the City University of New York and a priest of the Orthodox Church in America.
At
the Spiritual Roots of Protest retreat at Gethsemani in 1964, the
presentations of Merton, Berrigan, Muste and Yoder are important for the
protest movements to follow but even more so, the two eucharistic litugies
celebrated. The important place of liturgy, for Merton and the rest, will be
explored, both in the retreat and beyond.
b. David Golemboski – "Guilt, Innocence, and Social Subversion: Thomas Merton on Monastic 'Bystanding'."
David Golemboski is an Assistant Professor of
Government & International Affairs at Augustana University in Sioux Falls,
SD. He is Vice-President of the ITMS.
A4. Workshop
Christine Bochen – "Traveling Thomas Merton’s ‘Road to Joy’."
Newly retired after fifty years of teaching religious studies at Nazareth College and a founding member and past president of ITMS, Christine M. Bochen has taught, lectured, edited and written about Merton for decades – with joy!
“I
hope that you and I together will secretly travel our own road to joy,”
Merton wrote to young Grace Sisson.
Attentive to the signposts and the obstacles Merton identified along
“road to joy,” we will explore three dimensions of Merton’s experience and
understanding of joy – being human, friendship, and becoming one – and
consider what the practice of joy entails.
A5. Workshop
Judith Valente – "Let Peace Be Your Aim: Merton, Peacemaking and The Rule of St. Benedict."
Judith Valente has worked for national PBS-TV, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Her most recent book is “How To Live: What The Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community." She is a popular retreat leader and serves on the ITMS board.
offered Merton an early seed bed upon which to cultivate his own ideas about peace and non-violence. Participants will have a chance to discuss and reflect on what “The Rule” says about correcting faults, dealing with anger, and dispensing with useless chatter by showing “esteem for silence” so that peace might mature in the heart.
FRIDAY,
JUNE 28
3:30 PM – 4:45
PM
B1. Merton and Poetry
a.
Patrick F. O'Connell
– "Still
Crying after All These Years: The Tears of the Blind Lions at Seventy."
Though Merton Seasonal Editor Patrick O’Connell
was nearly two years of age when The Tears of the Blind Lions first
appeared, both he and it were considerably older before he delved into it
for the first time.
This presentation, on
the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first Synod of Bishops, will
provide an overview clarifying the generally unrecognized relationship
between these four texts, with particular attention to the specific
contributions of Merton to the message sent to the synod, as well as to the
thematic and textual similarities and differences among the three related
pieces he himself composed.
b. Mary Frances Coady
– "'Wild Air': Thomas Merton and Gerard Manley Hopkins."
Mary Frances Coady lives in Toronto.
Her book, Merton & Waugh: A Monk, A
Crusty Old Man and The Seven Storey Mountain, was published by
Paraclete Press in 2015.
A book of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry was placed in
young Thomas Merton’s hands when he was seventeen.
Six years later, as he read the Jesuit poet’s biography, the course
of his life changed. This paper
traces the ongoing importance of Hopkins and his poetry in Merton’s life and
work.
B2. Merton and Formation
a. Dung Tran and Michael Carey – "
Thomas Merton and the Formation of Authentic Leaders."Dung Q. Tran is an Assistant Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at Cabrini University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Michael R. Carey is an oblate of Saint Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California, and an Associate Professor of Organizational Leadership at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
This paper examines a variety of themes in Thomas Merton’s writing that speaks to what it means to become an authentic leader, such as the true self, obedience to truth, submission to a transcendent reality, and the integrative and relational dynamics of knowing and being.
b. Thomas Malewitz
– "No One Is an Island: Experiences of Using Themes from the Writings of Thomas Merton as a Curriculum Response to Adolescent Bullying."Thomas Malewitz is a theology educator at St. Xavier High
School, Louisville, KY. He also
serves as an adjunct lecturer and workshop presenter for diocesan
catechetical formation.
Bullying is acknowledged as an epidemic by 21st century educators. Scholars are calling for new perspectives to respond to bullying. This paper offers an example of how themes from the writings of Thomas Merton can be used in a secondary curriculum to response to adolescent bullying from a holistic perspective.
B3. Merton and Peace 1
a.
Bernadette McNary-Zak
–
"Recollection
as a Monastic Form of Nonviolence."
Bernadette McNary-Zak is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee (https://www.rhodes.edu/bio/mcnary-zak).
Why should the monks of Gethsemani remember and reflect on the civil rights protests in Birmingham? This paper presents and analyzes Merton’s argument in “Some Points from the Birmingham Nonviolence Movement” (June 10, 1964) that recollection facilitates a monastic form of nonviolent resistance in active solidarity with the Birmingham protestors.
b. Justin Klassen – "Peace Beyond Prose: Augustine and Merton on Creation’s Useless Speech
."Justin D. Klassen, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of
Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY. His scholarly work
focuses on philosophical theology and environmental ethics.
This paper argues that the persuasive clarity of modern
technocratic reason conceals a violent fear of mystery. With Augustine and
Merton, it then explores the possibility of a transformed relationship to
reality’s excesses, whereby we would learn to love the unintelligible as the
Word of God exceeding all text.
B4. Workshop
Kaya Oakes –
"Spiritual Autobiography in the Footsteps of Merton."Kaya Oakes teaches nonfiction writing at UC Berkeley, is a contributing writer for many magazines, and the author of four books.
The experience of writing one’s spiritual autobiography can be a transformative tool, particularly for lay people who often feel voiceless. In this workshop session, participants will draw on short passages from Merton’s writing in order to better understand the genre of spiritual autobiography and to generate short pieces of writing.
B5. Workshop
Paul Pynkoski – "Prophecy, Poetry, Contemplative Action: A Response to Merton’s Call to Peacemaking."
Paul Pynkoski resides in Toronto. In 2018, he brought several Christian organizations together to create Voices for Peace, a one day ecumenical conference.
Thomas Merton called peacemaking “the one task which God has imposed upon us in the world today.” Weaving Merton’s writing and art with contemporary music, art, poetry, and personal story, we will explore ways we might respond to his invitation to this task and work to build a community of peacemakers.
SATURDAY,
JUNE 29
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
C1. Merton
, the Celts, and Wildnessa.
Monica Weis – "Early Irish Hermit wisdom: Insights on Harmony and Inner Peace."Dr. Monica Weis SSJ, professor emerita of English at
Nazareth College, is a contributor to
The Merton Seasonal and
Annual, reviewer for
Cistercian Studies Quarterly, and author of three books on Merton,
the most recent being Thomas Merton and the Celts.
During the last four years of his life, Thomas Merton
became entranced by early Celtic Christianity and, in particular, Irish
hermit poetry, even creating his own “anthology” of favorite hermit poems.
This paper will explore Merton’s fascination with Celtic Christianity,
especially Irish hermit poems, to discover how these literary "graffiti”
affirmed Merton’s desire for more solitude.
b.
Deborah Kehoe – "Merton’s Poetry and the Call for 'Rewilding' the Human Heart."Deborah Kehoe, recently retired from teaching college
English, lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with a husband, two cats, a dog, and
a pond rich with wildness.
Referencing Merton’s “The Wild Places,” which extols the wisdom of John Muir’s naked embrace of nature on its terms, this presentation examines poems by Merton that suggest his shared understanding with Muir, a connection that expands when viewed through the lenses of contemporary thinkers decrying the effects of “domesecration” and “speciesism.”
C2. Merton and Transcending Barriers
a.
David Orberson – "Thomas Merton and the 'Nones:' What Merton Has to Say About Our Current State of Religiosity."David E. Orberson PhD teaches theology part-time at Bellarmine University and has worked in the insurance and risk management industry. He is the author of Thomas Merton: Evil and Why We Suffer.
Thomas Merton recognized that the American religious landscape was changing, and he wrote extensively about how Christians should live in a post-Christian world. In this presentation, I survey the current religious trends and explore Merton’s writings for new possibilities and roles for the Church and people of faith today.
b.
Liam Lynch
– "Contemplative
Cosmopolitanism: Thomas Merton’s Response to Xenophobia."
Dr Liam Lynch is a part-time teacher and researcher at Curtin University,
Perth, Western Australia. His PhD thesis examined Oscar Wilde’s philosophy
of art.
This paper proposes Thomas Merton’s contemplative experience and his exploration of St. Benedict’s Rule as reliable Christian antidotes to the current global xenophobic phenomenon. It argues that Merton’s spiritual writing is a manual toward a realisable engaged spirituality that challenges the fear of difference which fosters hatred of the other.
C3
. Merton and Peace 2a.
Anthony Nuccio – "What Does It Mean to Be at Peace? A Mertonian Engagement with Antifascist Organizing and Thought."Anthony Nuccio is a
member of the Chicago chapter of the ITMS; he is in discernment with the
Secular Franciscans and is an independent writer.
To wrestle with the meanings of peace, the author will use Gordon Zahn’s framing of Merton as a “reluctant pacifist” to offer a creative and thoughtful reflection on contemporary antifascist organizing and its challenges and developments of Merton’s thoughts on peace, violence, and Catholic life in the contemporary United States.
b. Dominiek Lootens – "Thomas Merton and community change: in dialogue with Septima Clark and Saul Alinsky."
Dominiek Lootens is Deputy Director of Academic Affairs at the University Centre Saint-Ignatius (UCSIA) in Antwerp.
In a letter to Dom Helder Camara, Thomas Merton refers to the community organizer Saul Alinsky. He describes Alinsky as one of the radical friends of Jacques Maritain. Septima Clark, mutual friend with Merton of Vincent Harding, was an important voice in the women-centered model of community change. This paper will bring Saul Alinsky, Septima Clark and Thomas Merton in dialogue looking at their views of community change within the civil rights movement.
C4. Guided Prayer / Meditation
Christopher Pramuk – "'Us and Them': Merton on the Dark Side of the Moon."
Christopher Pramuk is Chair of Ignatian Thought and Imagination at Regis University in Denver, and the author of Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton.
Select tracks from Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon are juxtaposed with Merton’s writings, a kind of shared audio divina for confronting the meaning of “sanity” and “madness” in a world where acts of inhumanity and mass violence have become normalized. Is God, is empathy, possible?
C5
. Guided MeditationJacqueline Chew, Jacqueline Corl-Seidel, and Sue Yoes – Outdoor Walking Meditation.
Jacqueline Chew teaches piano at the University of California – Berkeley. A Benedictine oblate of New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur, CA, she also dances with Dancers Circle, a liturgical dance group based in the Bay Area, CA.
Jacqueline Corl-Seidel is assistant choreographer for
Dancers Circle where, since 1986, she has danced, designed costumes and
adorned space. Her extensive
classical dance background provides a strong support for the many other
forms of dance she studies and teaches.
Sue Yoes currently teaches English and Reading at De Anza
College and is an oblate of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA. While
receiving her Master’s in Religious Studies at the University of California
– Santa Barbara, she studied prose and poetry of Thomas Merton.
Let the words of Thomas Merton guide your meditation as
we walk silently in the cool, morning air on the beautiful Santa Clara
University campus. Short periods of walking to various contemplative sites
will alternate with sitting in silence. Accompanying us will be poetry,
music and gentle movement.
C6. Meditation Dialogue
Kathleen Deignan, Ceire Kealty, and Ashley Hubaykah – "Practicing Peace: The Promises of 'Merton’s Beatitudes'."
Kathleen Noone Deignan, CND, PhD is Professor of Religious and Environmental Studies at Iona College and Founding Director of the Iona Spirituality Institute which hosts the Merton Contemplative Initiative.
Ashley Hubaykah is a religion teacher at Calvert Hall College High School in Baltimore. Ashley holds a BA in Religious Studies and International Studies from Iona College and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Notre Dame University of Maryland.
Céire Kealty is a doctoral candidate at Villanova University. She is pursuing her PhD in Theology. Her research interests include contemplative spirituality, economic ethics in consumer culture, and embodiment as a conduit to Divine unity.
This session explores what we propose as Merton Beatitudes—a capture of "found blessings" recovered from his writings and intended for practice—for putting on the mind and heart of peace. Three Iona Merton Contemplative Initiative animators will invite participants into silence to hear Merton's Beatitudes, into listening to hear them sounded, and then into exploratory dialogue about the promise implied in the practice of each Beatitude. With song and movement, our contemplative inquiry will build to a graffiti climax, so we can all "see the writing on the wall" signing the way to peace.
SATURDAY,
JUNE 29
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
D1. Merton and
Ecologya.
Carol Lenox – "The Exterior Silence of the Forest: Merton’s Guidance for Environmentalists."
Looking through the lens of Thomas Merton’s correspondence with peace activists and others, this paper examines Merton’s thoughts on the importance of the interior life and fidelity to the work we are called to do and how these might provide spiritual guidance to those in the modern day environmental movement.
Robert Weldon Whalen is the Sam and Carolyn McMahon Professor of History at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Thomas Merton and Loren Eiseley, essayists and poets, shared a remarkable ecological spirituality and a conviction that because, as Barry Commoner remarked, “everything’s connected,” peace on earth had to include peace with earth. This paper explores their intersecting and sometimes colliding visions of God’s green Kingdom.
D2. Merton and
Race Relations 2a. Greg Hillis – "Letters to a Black Catholic: Thomas Merton’s Correspondence with Fr. August Thompson."
Gregory K. Hillis is Associate Professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. He is currently working on a monograph on Thomas Merton’s Catholicism for Liturgical Press.
This paper examines the correspondence between Merton and Fr. August Thompson, a black Catholic priest in the diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana. I assess Fr. Thompson’s perception of Merton as a leader in the civil rights movement, and examine what their correspondence reveals regarding Merton’s understanding of what role he, a contemplative monk, should play in the cause of racial equality and peace.
b.
Marjorie Corbman – "'Welcome, Brother Merton': The Challenge of the Black Power Movement to Thomas Merton's Thought on Non-Violence."
This paper examines the challenge the Black Power movement posed to Thomas Merton’s understanding of peace-building. Engagement with Black Power advocates led Merton to reflect on the fading effectiveness of non-violent political resistance and to redefine the true work of peace-building as identifying and opposing the root causes of violence.
D3. Merton and
the Classroom / Merton and Laxa
. Alan Kolp – "A Revolution of Love: Creating Contemplatives in the College Classroom."Alan Kolp holds the Baldwin Wallace University Chair in Faith & Life. A lifelong Quaker, he is also a Benedictine oblate.
The college classroom becomes a laboratory for soul work—helping students become contemplatives. When students awaken their desire for a deeper, loving life committed to the pursuit of meaning and purpose, they commence a pilgrimage of love. Love is at the center of all humans, which is where God dwells.
b.
Emma McDonald – "Circling God: 'Perichoresis' in Robert Lax’s 'Circus of the Sun', Fanny Howe’s Indivisible, and the Life and Poetry of Thomas Merton."Originally from, Baltimore, MD, Emma McDonald is currently a graduate student at Yale Divinity School studying ethics and literature. She was a Daggy Scholar at the 15th ITMS General Meeting in 2017.
The concepts of “bewilderment” in Fanny Howe’s novel Indivisible and “unfolded grace” in Robert Lax’s poem “The Circus of the Sun” facilitate their spherical illustration of the circular search for God; this paper will explore these themes in connection with the life and poetry of Thomas Merton.
D4
. WorkshopJeff Kiernan – "It’s a Beautiful Day in the…Monastery: A Workshop in Discovering Some Harmonies Shared by Thomas Merton, Fred Rogers, and Ourselves ."
Jeff Kiernan is a teacher of Religion and Adjunct Lecturer in Sociology and the Sociology of Religion. A USAF Vietnam-era veteran, he was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector.
Two seemingly disparate 50th anniversaries occurred in 2018: the death of Thomas Merton in December of 1968 and the celebration of the beginning of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” in February of that year. This workshop uses some key thematic topics from both Merton and Rogers (e.g. listening, true self, shared humanity), some of Holly Yarbrough’s jazz style vocalizations of “the Neighborhood’s” music, and the insights of those participating in the workshop.
D5
. Workshop: "Finding Peace in the Midst of Chaos: 'Silence, Love This Growth'."
Larry Culliford
Long-term ITMS member, Larry Culliford loves helping people understand themselves better. His books include Much Ado about Something and Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Manifesto.
The workshop will follow this format. 1: Introduction: In search of Merton's "true self". The journey towards spiritual maturity. Exercise - a) becoming still b) silent reflection c) discussion (in pairs) 2: Suggestions: Adopting a 'Spiritual Development Plan'. Exercise - a) silent reflection b) preparing a plan c) sharing ideas 3: General discussion/ Q & A.
SATURDAY,
JUNE 29
3:15 PM – 4:45 PM
E1. Merton and
the Ignatian Traditiona.
Dan Horan – "Learning from a 'Saint Next Door': The Pursuit of Holiness in Thomas Merton and Pope Francis."Daniel P. Horan, OFM, PhD is a Franciscan friar and Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, author of The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton
.This paper explores how Gaudete et Exsultate can support veneration of Merton as an exemplar of Christian action and contemplation, a “saint next door” as Pope Francis describes such holy women and men who are not already beatified and canonized; and an examination of how Merton’s writings anticipate the nature of Christian discipleship as Pope Francis teaches today.
b. Cristóbal
Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes
– "Panentheism in Thomas Merton and Teilhard de Chardin:
Finding God in All Things."
Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes is currently a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Valdosta State University. He is the author of a new book, St. John of the Cross: His Prophetic Mysticism in the Historical Context of Sixteenth-Century Spain.
This paper examines the Ignatian view of finding God in all things held by Thomas Merton and by Teilhard de Chardin. These two Catholic mystics reconciled in their thoughts the apparent tension that exists between divine transcendence and divine immanence. In so doing, Merton’s and de Chardin’s panentheistic views can serve as a corrective to both classical deism and pantheism.
E2. Merton an
d Peace 3a.
Christopher Fici – "Merton and the Yoga of Peacemaking: Contemplation in Action in Dialogue with the Bhagavad-Gita."Christopher Fici is a Ph.D candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he focuses on constructive and comparative theology with a particular engagement in eco-theology.
For Thomas Merton, the Bhagavad-Gita “can be seen as the great treatise on the 'Active Life.' But it is really something more…” How does Merton, in concert and co-creative dance with the voice, or the song, of the Gita, teach us how to fuse worship, action, and contemplation for a yoga of peacemaking?
b.
Jim Robinson – "To Worry About Birds and People: Pesticides, Nuclear War, and the False Self."
In a letter to Rachel Carson, Merton traces the violence of pesticides and nuclear war to a shared sickness. I pair Merton’s identification of this sickness with his broader analysis of the false self, arguing that unveiling the false self and unravelling it through contemplation are vital to resisting omnicide.
E3. Spotlight Session
Paul Pearson – "Wearing 'Our Mitres to Bed' – Thomas Merton and the Need for Humour in 'This Mad Place'.”
Paul M Pearson is Director and Archivist of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, resident secretary of the ITMS, and chief of research for the Merton Legacy Trust.
This presentation will explore Merton’s sense of humour as a way for him to critique the world, humorously warning readers of our propensity to “wear our mitres even to bed.” Merton’s uses his irreverence to temper truth, and to point out the falseness of whatever “sacred cows” he perceives.
E4. Guided Meditation / Workshop
Sarah Kothe and Cassidy Hall
–
"Peace through Poetry."
Cassidy Hall is the author of Notes on Silence, filmmaker (In Pursuit of Silence), podcaster (Encountering Silence), and holds a masters degree in counseling. Cassidy’s writing has been published in the Convivium Journal, and the Merton Seasonal
.Sarah Kothe was a 2015 ITMS Daggy Scholar. She received her master’s degree in theological studies from Emory University in 2018 and is currently teaching religion to middle school students in New York City.
In his “Letter to Poets,” Thomas Merton reveals the depths of a poet’s vocation calling poets to be “ministers of silence” who cure the world of violence and absurdity with a “therapeutic love” that changes everything. In this session, moments of silence mixed with Merton’s poetry will provide those in attendance with a sacred space in which to cultivate their own poetic spirit.
E5.
WorkshopSusan McCaslin and JS Porter – "Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine."
Susan McCaslin, Canadian poet, author of Into the Open: Poems New and Selected, has written extensively on Thomas Merton and the divine and human feminine. Susan is a retired Faculty Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Douglas College in British Columbia.
J.S. Porter is the author of The Thomas Merton Poems and Thomas Merton: Hermit at the Heart of Things. He blogs for The Nancy Duffy Show and has a column in Dialogue Magazine.
Much of Thomas Merton’s growth as a monk and writer had to do with his deepening sense of the feminine. Merton’s struggle with the feminine enriched his understanding of his place in the world. “The Divine and Embodied Feminine,” a dialogue recently published in Works&Conversations, will be the basis of their presentation, as well as their daring new study, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine.