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    The seven storey mountain by Thomas Merton Summary

    The seven storey mountain
    Thomas Merton
    SpiritualityBiographyPhilosophy
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    Overview of The seven storey mountain

    Thomas Merton's spiritual masterpiece sold 600,000 copies in 1948 alone, yet mysteriously never appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Championed by Evelyn Waugh, this atomic-age antidote to Cold War anxiety continues offering what one critic called "a countercultural option" to modern living.

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    Best quote from The seven storey mountain

    “

    My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and that fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

    ”
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    "Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

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    "Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

    @djmikemoore
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    Key Takeaways

    1

    A Spiritual Odyssey Through the Ruins of Modernity

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    The world was burning when Thomas Merton entered it in 1915. Born near the French-Spanish border during World War I, he arrived in what he would later describe as "a place resembling Hell." His early years were marked by constant movement-France, England, America-as his artist father sought inspiration and his mother succumbed to cancer when Thomas was just six. By fifteen, he was an orphan, untethered and adrift. This rootlessness would define his youth but also prepare him for his remarkable transformation. What makes Merton's journey so compelling is not just where he ended-behind monastery walls-but how thoroughly he had embraced the world he would eventually renounce. Before becoming a monk, he had tasted everything modern life offered: intellectual ambition at Cambridge and Columbia, political radicalism, artistic pursuits, and sensual indulgence. His was not a sheltered soul who fled to religion out of fear, but one who had drunk deeply from modernity's well and found it desperately wanting.

    2

    The Descent into Worldly Excess

    3

    The First Stirrings of Faith

    4

    The Moment of Conversion

    5

    Finding His Vocation

    6

    The Embrace of Monastic Life

    7

    The Paradox of Solitude