Dancing In The Water Of Life: Seeking Peace In The Hermitage( Volume 5 )( Series - Merton, Thomas//journal Of Thomas Merton )

In the fifth volume of Thomas Merton's acclaimed journals, the renowned monk and writer immerses himself in the revolutionary ideas of the sixties and finally begins to live full-time at his own hermitage.

The sixties were a time of restlessness, inner turmoil, and exuberance for Merton during which he closely followed the careening development of political and social activism - Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Selma, the Catholic Worker Movement, the Vietnam war, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Volume 5 chronicles the approach of Merton's fiftieth birthday and marks his move to Mount Olivet, his hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where he was finally able to fully embrace the joys and challenges of solitary life: 'In the hermitage, one must pray of go to seed. The pretense of prayer will not suffice. Just sitting will not suffice . . . Solitude puts you with your back to the wall (or your face to it ), and this is good' (13 October, 1964).