{"id":53,"date":"2025-08-08T04:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/08\/thomas-merton-attraction-repulsion-fascination\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T04:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:11:15","slug":"thomas-merton-attraction-repulsion-fascination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/08\/thomas-merton-attraction-repulsion-fascination\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Merton: Attraction, Repulsion, Fascination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14pt;\">I am attracted by his openness to influence from diverse quarters, his Whitmanic &quot;I am large; I contain multitudes,&quot; his Terentian &quot;nothing human is foreign to me,&quot; and his relentless self-examination. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14pt;\">I am repulsed by his lack of mental rigor and and his liberal propensity for squish and gush in matters political. And then there was his need for attention. He was too much enamoured of name and fame, and too fearful of being forgotten. He would have liked to flee the world but was unable to achieve escape velocity and could only orbit around her. Her gravitational attraction was no match for the grace he was granted. I allude to Simone Weil&#39;s brilliant title, &quot;Gravity and Grace.&quot;&#0160;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14pt;\">I am fascinated by his inner conflicts as I am by those of Julien Green, as revealed in his exceedingly rich diary, not to mention the inner conflicts I find in myself.&#0160;&#0160;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am attracted by his openness to influence from diverse quarters, his Whitmanic &quot;I am large; I contain multitudes,&quot; his Terentian &quot;nothing human is foreign to me,&quot; and his relentless self-examination. I am repulsed by his lack of mental rigor and and his liberal propensity for squish and gush in matters political. And then there &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/08\/thomas-merton-attraction-repulsion-fascination\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Thomas Merton: Attraction, Repulsion, Fascination&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-merton-thomas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}