This past Advent, seventeen peacemakers led by Catholic Workers across the country returned from Palestine-Israel hosted by Sabeel, which is the grassroots, ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology movement rooted in the universal ethic of nonviolence. Meeting with civil society peacemakers across faiths, institutions, and identities in Palestine-Israel, the goals of the trip were to 1) be with and encourage the people who are under attack, 2) collaborate with Sabeel on ways that the unjust, c...
May 14, 2026•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 71
This presentation examines how Thomas Merton and Howard Thurman each offer distinct yet related perspectives on mystical anthropology. It brings Thurman’s “search for common ground” into conversation with Thomas Merton’s account of the “true self.” While Thurman asks how oppressed communities can remain spiritually alive amid racism, poverty, and political terror, Merton confronts the “false self” constructed by egoism, consumerism, nationalism, and approval addiction. Though writing from differ...
Apr 15, 2026•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 70
John Dickerson is a journalist, author, and longtime interviewer, most recently co-anchor of the CBS Evening News and chief political analyst for CBS News. He spent 16 years at CBS, where he also served as senior national correspondent, contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning , and previously co-host of CBS This Morning. From 2015 to 2018, he moderated Face the Nation and served as the network’s chief Washington correspondent. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he moderated two CBS presidenti...
Mar 19, 2026•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 69
What kind of economic system might Thomas Merton advocate? What principles would it be based on and how would it differ from what we see in the United States, or Sweden, or China, or Cuba? Answering these questions requires developing the negatives. Merton's writings are full of critiques of capitalism and its voracious appetites, its obsession with technology, its triviality and tricks, its relationship to the war machine, and its degradation of humans in pursuit of profit. Merton also critique...
Feb 11, 2026•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 68
One year after Thomas Merton's passing, the Black American liberation theologian James Cone published Black Theology and Black Power , a reflection on the Black Power movement of the 1960s and the central role that liberation plays in the Christian gospel. As we know, Merton dedicated significant effort considering U.S. race relations broadly and the Black Power Movement specifically as evidenced by an entire chapter in his book Faith and Violence , entitled “From Non-violence to Black Power” bu...
Jan 14, 2026•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 67
JUDITH VALENTE - In Their Own Words: The Monks Who Knew Merton. There are only a few remaining monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani who knew Thomas Merton personally. One is now 103 years old. ITMS President (2023-2025) Judith Valente spent time interviewing those monks about their encounters with Merton. Their memories are vivid and entertaining. Not surprisingly, Merton remains a complex figure for many of them. They talk frankly about his relationship with M. and his fierce opposition to the abbe...
Dec 10, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 66
In the nineteen sixties, finding a cloistered monk in Protestant spaces was unexpected. We will look at Merton's influence in Protestant culture, then extend our exploration into other unexpected and marginal places, including punk and hardcore engagements with Merton, and imagining Merton as an urban character. Viewing Merton through an alternative lens can encourage us to see Merton reaching further than we might expect or even be comfortable with. Harley Dean Mathews is associate pastor of Fi...
Nov 14, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 65
In the fifty years since Dr. Raymond Moody’s 1975 landmark publication, Life After Life , modern research into the phenomena of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and related studies in consciousness have flourished. Among the cross-disciplinary approaches to this burgeoning field, there is an unnamed question emerging: At what point do we shift from an emphasis on seeking scientific evidence in support of the veracity of NDEs to an exploration of whether NDEs might themselves contribute to a deeper ...
Oct 20, 2025•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 64
In this presentation, Ryan Bell explores how Thomas Merton had a profound influence on the life of Raymond Hunthausen, the high-profile, boundary-pushing Archbishop of Seattle from 1975 to 1991. While the two scions of the post-Vatican II American Catholic Church never met, Merton’s writings on peace and justice spurred Hunthausen to begin a series of headline- grabbing protests against nuclear arms, racism, and sexism. Ryan outlines how Merton’s influence on Hunthausen turned the archbishop int...
Sep 10, 2025•59 min•Ep. 63
The following is a plenary presentation from the 19th General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society, Regis University, Denver, Colorado, delivered on June 21, 2025. Estevan Rael-Gálvez is the director of Native Bound-Unbound, a Mellon Foundation sponsored digital humanities project centered on the millions of indigenous people whose lives were and have been shaped by enslavement. Dr. Rael-Gálvez, anthropologist, historian, and Indigenous slavery scholar, has served as the state hist...
Jul 28, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 62
The following is a plenary presentation from the 19th General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society, Regis University, Denver, Colorado, delivered on June 20, 2025. Susan Reynolds is a theologian and ethnographer whose first book, People Get Ready , received the 2024 Best Book Award by the College Theology Society. Reynolds is an assistant professor of Catholic Studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, GA, and is a contributing writer for Commonweal magazi...
Jul 22, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 61
This talk is about two men of the twentieth century, giants in their own right, the monk Thomas Merton and the Beat writer Jack Kerouac who as Roman Catholics studied Zen Buddhism. Both had a great deal common: Celtic ancestry, students at Columbia University, grounded in a spirituality of nature and a love of animals that reflected their respect for all sensate creatures. Both too had a dark side, prone to depression, struggling with sanity, even suicide at times. This talk discusses their simi...
May 14, 2025•59 min•Ep. 60
Becky McIntyre and Sarah Fuller discuss their art and experiences as artists working in religious and social justice movements, particularly the Catholic Worker movement. They will discuss intersections of faith, resistance, creativity and justice in their own life histories and artistic practices. They discuss examples of their art, and discuss ways in which the art and work of Thomas Merton touches on their own artistic practices. Becky McIntyre is a community artist, printmaker, and muralist ...
Apr 09, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 59
Annual Fourth & Walnut Lecture, 2025 with James Finley Being A Healing Presence in a Wounded & Traumatized World James Finley Ph.D. lived as a monk at the cloistered Trappist monastery of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where the world-renowned monk and author, Thomas Merton, was his spiritual director. James Finley leads retreats and workshops throughout the United States and Canada, attracting men and women from all religious traditions who seek to live a contemplative way of life...
Mar 19, 2025•44 min•Ep. 58
In this presentation to celebrate the launch of the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence in Rome in September 2024, Sojourners senior editor Rose Marie Berger reflects on what led up to the launch of the Institute, what moral and theological questions top the Institute's research agenda, and what comes next for this tremendous new resource available to the global Church and beyond. Merton's own thinking and prayer on war and peace opened the way for the maturing of Catholic nonviolence as it is un...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 57
An excerpt from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander lives as permanently as can be on the door entering the dining room in Maryhouse, one of the New York Catholic Worker houses of hospitality. In this personal talk, I hope to explore what it meant to read Merton in the context of living at a Catholic Worker house, and how I believe the Worker and Merton hold the tension of guilt and faithful living in a world inundated with violence. Abbi Fraser, the child of two Protestant pastors, got her BA in ...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 56
In this presentation on the anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death, iconographer Fr. Bill McNichols and theologian Christopher Pramuk reflect on the power of sacred art to quicken the hope of Advent in our hearts, and to bring the creativity and courage of love into “this demented inn,” where Christ “has come uninvited.” Their book together, All My Eyes See: The Artistic Vocation of Fr. William Hart McNichols , has been described as “incandescent,” an “intimate conversation between two soul friend...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 55
The consistent ethic of life is a fully Catholic engagement with the difficult challenges that conscience encounters in our time. Now in this challenging, divided moment is the right time to re-discover the consistent ethic and adopt an attitude that calls us to partisans for life beyond our partisanship. Steven P. Millies is professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. His most recent books include A Consistent Ethic of Life: Naviga...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 54
Gray Matthews, assistant professor of Communication at the University of Memphis, Memphis TN, has served the International Thomas Merton Society as a member of the Board, co-editor of The Merton Annual , coordinator of the 2007 ITMS conference, as well as coordinator of the Memphis ITMS Chapter since 2001. Gray has been a frequent presenter at ITMS conferences and recently authored an exploratory essay on Merton and decolonial issues of contemplative concern. This Presentation is a thought exper...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 53
Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day championed social justice witness informed by deep contemplative practice. Their powerful example amid the crises of the 1960s can provide us with insights as we seek to respond with integrity to today’s seemingly unprecedented crises. Julie Leininger Pycior will invite your reflections on these themes as revealed in her prize-winning book Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and the Greatest Commandment: Radical Love in Times of Crisis . She also will share how research for...
Sep 12, 2024•58 min•Ep. 52
David M. Odorisio, PhD, is Co-Chair and Associate Core Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA. David received his MA in the History of Christian Spirituality from Saint John's University, School of Theology-Seminary (Collegeville, MN), and his PhD in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco, CA). David is editor of Thomas Merton in California: The Redwoods Conferences and Letters (Liturgical Press, 2024), and Merton & Hinduism: ...
May 15, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 51
During the last three years of her life, Sr. Wendy Becket, an English hermit and art historian, shared an intimate, daily correspondence, largely about holiness and the life of faith. Throughout, the figure of Thomas Merton loomed large. Sr. Wendy held ambivalent feelings on the subject of Merton. Yet in the course of our correspondence she came to a startling reassessment, comparable in some ways to Merton’s own “awakening from a dream of separateness.” Robert Ellsberg is the long-time publishe...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 50
Thomas Merton’s death in 1968 at the age of just 53 was tragic and sudden, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that he was unprepared for the end. What does it mean to be prepared? Sophfronia will examine Merton’s writings to see how he can take us beyond society’s “having one’s affairs in order” way of thinking about death to a way of living as a full expression of the life in abundance that Christ offers in the New Testament. Sophfronia Scott is a novelist, essayist, and contemplative thinker whos...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 49
Leslye Colvin weaves a tapestry that provides a fresh perspective of Thomas Merton interwoven with glimpses of her journey as a child of the Civil Rights Movement era, and the systems that bind us all. Leslye Colvin is a writer, spiritual companion, and contemplative activist. She has extensive experience in promoting mission and expanding outreach of a variety of sectors including faith-based non profit, government, corporate, and academia. Inspired by the Catholic social justice tradition, she...
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 48
Anne Pearson is a graduate of Bellarmine University, where she earned a degree in political science and psychology and studied the encroachment of prisons into the public school system through disciplinary alternative schools. While at Bellarmine, she completed a thesis on Thomas Merton and racism and has since presented her research at multiple national and international conferences and as a TEDx talk. She currently lives in Washington, DC where she provides resources to graduate nursing studen...
Jan 10, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 47
Thomas Merton’s epiphany on the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets was a significant breakthrough into Christ consciousness and the opening up of what Raimon Panikkar calls, “Christophany.” This new consciousness propelled an inversion of Merton’s monastic life toward ever deepening relationships with a world of complexity. Relying on insights from Carl Jung, Raimon Panikkar and Teilhard de Chardin, I will explore Merton’s Christophany as a radical theology, a mutational disruption of the Neopl...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 46
Dr. Shannen Dee Williams is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton. She is an award-winning scholar of the African American experience and Black Catholicism with research and teaching specializations in women's, religious, and Black freedom movement history. Dr. Williams holds a B.A. in history with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from Agnes Scott College, a M.A. in Afro-American studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Ph.D. in history from Rutgers ...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 45
Cassidy S. Hall (She/Her), MA, MDIV, MTS, is an author, award-winning filmmaker, podcaster, and leading voice in contemplative spirituality. She is the cohost of the Encountering Silence podcast and the creator of the Contemplating Now and Queering Contemplation podcasts. Her films include In Pursuit of Silence and Day of a Stranger . Cassidy is widely published and currently resides in Indianapolis, where she is studying for her DMin degree. What Would it Look Like to Queer Thomas Merton? What ...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 44
In our time rife with political division and worry about our democracy, the contemplative practice does not allow us to be idle spectators. Rather, our spiritual practice is a gift for the Body as a whole. Let us explore together the demands of a contemplative life to face and heal the world around us. Sister Simone Campbell (Roman Catholic Sister of Social Service) is a religious leader, attorney, author and the recipient of a 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom (the United States' highest civil...
Oct 02, 2023•38 min•Ep. 43
Thomas Merton—an eternal seeker, dislocated immigrant, and sojourner—left his mark on an Asian woman who was seeking a spiritual adventure. In many borderlands, the virgin points, Merton's hidden yet honest struggle inspire a deep connection with the immigrant woman in exile. Through a personal narrative of sojourning, an emphasis begins to manifest that her religious life began in Korea and found home in the US, contrasting Merton's journey of finding a home in Asia. Dancing with Thomas Merton ...
Sep 25, 2023•51 min•Ep. 42
