The Reverend Dr. Donald Grayston, retired priest of the diocese of New Westminster is pleased to announce the publication of his new book:
THE CAMALDOLI CORRESPONDENCE
THOMAS MERTON
and the Noonday Demon
How did Thomas Merton become omas Merton? Starting out from any one of his earlier major life moments—wealthy orphan boy, big man on campus, fervent Roman Catholic convert, new and obedient monk—we find ourselves asking how by his life’s end he had grown from who he was then into a transcultural and transreligious spiritual teacher read by millions. is book takes another such starting point: his attempt in the mid-1950s to move from his abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky—a place that had become, in his view, noisy beyond bearing—to an Italian monastery, Camaldoli, which he idealized as a place of monastic peace. e ultimate irony: Camaldoli at that time, bucolic and peaceful outwardly, was inwardly riven by a pre-Vatican II culture war; whereas Gethsemani, which he tried so hard to
leave, became, when he was given his hermitage there in 1965, his place to recover Eden. In walking with Merton on this journey, and reading the letters he wrote and received at the time, we find ourselves asking, as he did, with so much energy and honesty, the deep
questions that we may well need to answer in our own lives.
Book Launches
(1) Monday, Sept 28, 7 - 9pm - sponsored by the Thomas Merton Society of Canada 7pm, presentation, Q+A; 8 pm, reception and book signing. St Andrew's United Church, 1044 St Georges Ave, North Vancouver
(2) Saturday, Oct 3, 7:30pm - all welcome. 7:30pm, presentation, Q+A; book signing; cash bar at Our Town Café, corner of Kingsway and Broadway in Vancouver
(3) Christ Church Cathedral - date TBA
(4) Seattle - date and location TBA
(5) Victoria - date and location TBA
The book will be on sale at all the launches for $35CAD. That's "author's price" plus shipping and exchange. It's also available from the publisher for $35USD and from Amazon at $47USD - a word to the wise!
Click below to download the full information and promotion flyer from Cascade Books