3 comments about Release the Power of Prayer.

1. Excellent book! This is the best book on prayer I have ever read. It clearly demonstrates God's faithfullness to a man who depended only on Him and not man for provision and direction in everything. I was greatly inspired to live my life of faith the same way as George Muller.



2. I set out to read this book after I had read his Autobiography. If you too found yourself in this situation you already know what I found out... They are essentially the same testimony. This book contains large excerpts from the autobiography, but exculding a timeline of Mr. Mullers Life in the front, nothing substantially new. However, it is to date one of the most outstanding testimonies of a life of faith in our times that I have read. I also HIGHLY recommend Rees Howells: Intercessor by Norman Grubb. If you are seeking to deepen your faith or desire to live a more dedicated life for the Lord you'll not regret purchasing this book!



3. If you are in search of the testimony of a man who has lived a life solely in prayer, dependant solely on God alone, this is the book for you! The story of George Müller is definitely an inspirational story of a man who placed his hope and faith in God alone, for the care of thousands of orphans, and helped out many many missionaries monetarily and spiritually... he did all this while never asking another person for anything... just rooting his heart in prayer! Amazing!! Read this book!!

5 comments about Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan: A Man to Match His Mountains.

1. I am so impressed with Badshah Khan to the point of being overwhelmed with admiration. One reason is his breadth of vision and his tolerance. At one point Gandhi asked Khan if his English sister-in-law had become a Muslim, and Abdul Ghaffar Khan replied that he did not know: "Why should not a husband and wife adhere each to their respective faiths?" (p.145) I long for this kind of tolerance in the world!
   
   The book is an amazing story of success and failure. Khan and Gandhi succeeded nonviolently in bringing independence to India. The failure lies in the facts that: 1) Neither one of them wanted to see the partitioning in to two nations, 2) their dreams of a united Hindu-Islamic nation turned into a nightmare, 3) they both envisioned a nonviolent nation and that has turned out to be a far-fetched notion. Yet, Khan & Gandhi proved that non-violence can work, as proven again by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.
   
   As the author notes, probably no other leader suffered so much for the cause of peace and nonviolence as did Khan. No, not even Gandhi or even Mandela. I think we have in this book the profile of THE most amazing man in world history!! And the fact is that he is probably known by far less than one percent of the world's population.



2. I love everything Eknath Easwaran writes and this book exceeded my expectations. The stories and information are priceless - buy this book if you want to know about the life of Badshah Khan.



3. I request customers and other visitors to read the article by Arif H. Akhunzada titled "Bacha Khan legacy is Questionable" with caution because in Pakistan objective interpretation and description of history is mostly marred by the official stand on history enshrined in the so-called "Pakistan Ideology".
   
   Pakistan Ideology i.e. the Idea that sparked the struggle for Pakistan is a highly communal, theocratic, and Pan-Islamist view of history that considers the people of the Subcontinent to be divided into two religious communities-Hindus and Muslims-with entirely different ways of life and very little in common to live in a single state or society. According to this ideology, the Idea of Pakistan was born when the first Arab Muslim invader i.e. Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded India (Sindh) and converted some of its inhabitants to Islam.
   
   This divisive and jingoistic philosophy very well serves the interests of the military bureaucracy that has been ruling Pakistan since inception and the allied religious and fudal classess.
   
   As Abdul Ghaffar Khan aka Bacha Khan espoused a non-communal approach to life in which the highest spiritual act and worship was the "service of humanity" irrespective of religious affiliation and practically upheld what he thought as the true purpose of life ( evident from his personal life and joint struggle with Hindus, Sikhs, etc. for freedom), he, therefore, is an anathema to Pakistani national elite. This elite, through a systematic campaign, has tried its best to malign Abdul Ghaffar Khan, mispresent him to the world and his own people i.e. Pashtuns, make him controversial, and permanently erase him from history and the memories of the successive generation of Pashtuns. These elite want Pashtun society to evolve the Taleban way.
   
   There is also another dimension to all this. The political, bureaucratic, economic, and intellectual elite of Pakistan predominently comes from two communities; Punjabis and Muhajirs. The other three communities of Pakistan i.e. Sindhis, Baluchis, and Pashtuns have only peripheral rule in Pakistan. The Punjabi-Muhajir elite wants to build a Pakistani nation based on Islam and Hindustani Muslim Culture. Therefore, any thing that gives these marginalized communities (i.e. Baluchis, Pashtuns, and Sindhis) a sense of identity, pride, self-esteem, and confidence is virtually unbearable for the Punjabi-Muhajir elite that dominate Pakistan.
   
   I will request the world not to forget Bacha Khan. The values and the view of life he upheld are eternal and humanistic. His legacy belongs to the entire humanity rather than a specific community. As a Pashtun, I believe that my people i.e. Pashtuns can achieve spiritual and material success only if they follow Bacha Khan's philosophy of non-voilence and peaceful struggle for personal and collective development. Unfortunately, initially British and later Pakistani state ruthlessly suppressed his movement and philosophy. The politics of the Cold War, in which radical Islam and Jehad were used as counter to communism, also have its share in weakening Bacha Khan's "Khudayi Khidmatgar Movement".
   
   I will further request that readers should read anthropological studies on Pashtuns than relying on superficial views about them here and there.



4. All the Amazon reviews for this book below perceive Abdul Ghaffar Khan superficially, only from the angle of the non-violent doctrine and rural Islamic philosophy he preached, rather than any practical political accomplishments and impact on history and his society that may have been made by him - or the lack thereof. High ideals are fine, except that they are a little ephemeral as far as practical reality is concerned - unless they help achieve something effective and concrete. And sadly this is what this otherwise good and simple man failed to do. Living in the same society as he did, I will focus on him from the angle of Pashtun social realities and issues, unlike the other foreign reviewers who are just content with the usual wishy-washy praise of his non-violent Islamic ideals. It must also be kept in mind that Eknath Easwaran is a pacifist Hindu thinker, and so has written this book mainly from the viewpoint of highlighting his pacifist aspect above all else. Which is true, since Ghaffar Khan's pacifism was largely Hindu inspired, but for Pashtuns he is basically a politician and cultural figure, and pacifism is just a facet of his character, albeit a key one. 20th century Pashtun political history is an obscure issue but still crucially important, inspite of its failed and forlorn character. I consider this book as perhaps the most useful introduction so far for the foreign reader, of the man at the centre of it - and I rate it at five stars because there are only a handful of books worth the name on the international level that deal with his doings, and this one is about the story of the man himself. Ghaffar Khan aka Badshah (or Bacha) Khan was a towering figure mainly because of his personal qualities of head and heart - infinite patience, steely determination and simplicity. He himself belonged to the Hunnish origin "Khan" Pashtun landowning class. He is acclaimed by most Pathans (Pashtuns) as being the father of their "nationalism". He founded a simple rural political-cum-cultural-cum-religious movement in the countryside to "dignify" Pashtuns and their culture and language and free them from first British and then Pakistani rule. They were known as "Red Shirts", the name being derived from their uniformed cadres and were first affiliated politically with the All India National Congress of M.K.Gandhi and later merged into and then broke with many other Pakistani groupings (when they couldn't dominate them). They were finally turned into a formal political structure of their own by 1986, which came to be dominated by his late son and daughter-in-law, and is now very much their family concern, a "lucrative" political party in the hands of his grandchildren and their in-laws and other cronies. They now use his image and "philosophy" to keep their fortunes alive. He was the key regional ally of Gandhi in his non-violent independence struggle for India. His position on Pakistan was varied and inconsistent. He had earlier tried vainly to oppose the dissolution of the Turkish Caliphate in the 1920s. All these activities earned him long spells in jail. But his anti-British stance didn't stop him from getting his sons elitist British educations and properties in Britain, as well as good political positions and alliances in later Pakistani governments.
   
   Let us now review Badshah Khan's accomplishments - and those of his successors - for those are what really count in the historical long run. What is there visible to us that he has achieved for his people through his struggle and philosophy? Nothing but a vague demand for some sort of a "Pashtun nation" of sorts that even its proponents very conveniently refrain from defining exactly - and some sort of "unity" for the Pashtun ethnicity divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan. That was never really elaborated upon either. First of all, he desired Pashtun political union with India, after it became independent; later, he toned that down and would give the impression of wanting total Pashtun independence; otherwise, he would only demand Pashtun provincial autonomy within Pakistan; and many a time, he swore fealty to Pakistan's integrity! He is also known for his advocacy of Afghanistan as the "real" Pashtun state, and that is where he now lies buried. In the end, he merely wanted to change Pakistan's Pashtun province's name from NWFP to the more realistic "Pakhtunkhwa". That was the nature of his ever efflusive politics. No doubt he talked about some vague Pashtun independence and national self-determination, but avoided really important issues like improving and reforming their cultural quality. Otherwise he was just a popular rustic social figure, wearing the rude homespun cotton garb of a village simpleton who gave his society nothing of particular merit other than going around from village to village drinking green tea with the men and extolling the virtues of rustic Pashtun goodness and their good old rough Red Shirt camaraderie. Now let us see what effect this influence of his has had. When we look at the Pashtun society in 2006 and compare it to what it was in 1930 - at the height of his movement - we see no real changes in it at all: their dirty mud caked village roads and stinking ramshackle bazaars are the same, their rich, exploitative landowning upper and noveau riche classes, who use their educational skills and government jobs to enable their legendary corruption, plunder and pelf (and who are the local comprador dependents of US global imperialism) - are the same; the great masses of the Pathan populace are boorish vicious tribesmen and illiterate peasant artisans, cultivators and daily wagers, little better than animals in any respect, going around swathed in their rough stone age felt sheets and caps and turbans, working with much the same equipment in their fields as they did 3000 years ago in the days of their Gandhara predecessors, and living likewise: the open drains by the roadside and walls serve as the men's public urinals. The only notable differences between Gandhara and now are that there are some dilapidated roads, vehicles, electricity and various other trappings of modernity that were introduced here by British influence; and lately Pashtuns have been inundated with cell phones, in an unnatural and despicable mix that I call "neolithic globalism" - and Badshah Khan or his marvellous legacy are certainly not responsible for that. (It is because of the folly and misdemeanours of the modern world that we see the likes of backward Bedouin sheikhs sporting chunky Rolex watches and Rolls Royces, and medieval Pathan ruffians of all hues - and other such "natives" - having undeserved free access to the latest electronic gadgets and vehicles, and taking them for granted. Sad paradoxes indeed). The modern state institutions that exist in the Pashtun areas under Pakistani rule are those bequeathed by former British rule, and they exist merely as a modern verneer beneath which things go on here as they have been doing for thousands of years. With these institutions existing just as rubberstamps, the real decision making power lies with informally constituted tribal councils made up of "elders" and "influentials" and "notables" at the local level, extending all the way up. Bribery, patronage and coercion and are considered normal business procedure. Nobody pays taxes, and smuggling constitutes trade. Gun running, narcotics and counterfeiting are traditional lucrative sources of income here. Merit doesn't exist. People tend to settle all disputes personally owing to police and government ineffectiveness in such a society, and given the extreme and proud Pashtun temperament - often end up using guns whatever the nature of the problem. Grasping, greed, jealousy and lawless behaviour are customarily extolled as being "manly". "Insults" have to be avenged - often by death - and so many things are regarded as insults, that normal people elsewhere can't even imagine: for instance, asking someone to remove his car parked wrongly behind yours can be regarded by him as insulting, and among most Pashtuns in general such incidents are the norm because of their lack of adherence to and cynical disregard for proper procedure and manners is so universal as they haughtily dismiss all such procedural "fuss" as being beneath strong, clever men. Even someone overtaking another person's car is often regarded by the one being overtaken as an insult... Pashtun fracticide, treachery and tribal disunity are unparalleled and legendary. Extreme religious fervour has always been the norm in this claustrophobic society. Its conventions are extolled and enforced ruthlessly. Marriages are all arranged. Women are still bought and sold in marriage deals. Polygamy is considered normal and even a prestigious aspiration. Pashtun society is infamous for its sub-human and extreme cultural attitudes regarding its women and their rights. Afghan tribesmen use the Pashto word "kaddah" for wife which literally means "baggage" or "belongings". Women are made the cornerstone of a twisted all-pervasive male "code" of feudal-tribal "honour" that rules day to day Pashtun living, involving senseless butchery, blood feuds, duels and land and money grabbing. What is more, the women willingly and "proudly" accept their place in all this too, may I inform those shocked western and other liberals who read this! (After all, it is they who make sure to pass on these noxious traditions to their sons).
   
   In short, Pashtun society is a lowlife jungle society in every sense of the word, at a time in history when all should know and do better. It is stuck in a time warp. All this is what Badshah Khan (and now his brood) endorsed and glorified as the "Pashtun nation's precious cultural identity", a situation to protect and be proud of. His non-violence was mostly a tactic for political activities against the British, and later the Pakistani administrations. And not all of this was non-violent either, if one cares to read about the Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre of 1930 and the Baburra massacre of 1948, where he got hundreds of his uniformed cadres slaughtered as they were preparing for confrontations. No doubt the reader will come across gushing, over-reverent Pashtun views regarding him. (An example is a Pashtun's Amazon review for the 1998 edition of this book, on a separate webpage). But these are worthless tinsel, the bombastic rigmarole typical of the blustery and exaggerated Pathan mentality and "public morality" that they show to others, especially foreigners. You can ask me instead about what Badshah Khan & Co. accomplished. I belong to the same provincial district as the Badshah Khan family, called Charsadda, and my family is even distantly related to theirs.
   
   So honestly, what did this man achieve in his society that merits such a fuss? His successors are nowadays typical Pakistani politicians, who run an opportunist business venture of a party devoted to robbery and thuggery. That is what characterises Pakistani politics nowadays. Not only have things not changed in Pashtun society, but they have in fact taken a turn for the worse since America revived and equipped Islamic fundamentalism here to counter the USSR in the 1980s. Whatever little cosmetic good 100 years of British rule did the Pashtuns in Pakistan has now been effectively wiped out by that. Badshah Khan could not give his people what their British "oppressors" had given them, and he merely created a cheap circus troupe, a cheerleading carnival performing in red uniforms for the benefit of bored peasants and later, corrupt politicians. Although he himself definitely had a strong character, with a deep sense of genuine personal committment and he suffered greatly for his rustic nationalist causes, that alone amounts to nothing on the real level as he had nothing significant to offer and improve his society with other than calling for some ephemeral nationalist unity based on a decidedly decrepit culture. If Pathans honestly realise that, then there might be some hope for change in their dark lot. If not, then they should happily keep Badshah Khan as their icon along with their pathological, medieval state of being for as long as they exist. It is indeed sad to see how the exaltation of the lowest common denominator factor pervades all affairs of life globally nowadays - whether that means praising rarified ideals, or eulogising inferior and bad culture among other things. After 9/11, these negative potentials become very clear indeed.



5. This is a sweeping portrait of Badshah Khan, a courageous Muslim figure. I felt inspired as I read this touching work, though I wanted more.
   I wish that Khan's autobiography, My Life and Struggles would be more readily available. Also, a more detailed biography would be helpful. This book is wonderful as an overview but one who wants to dive deeper should investigate further.
   This book is an excellent introduction to Badshah Khan. It shows how one can use the bismillah (in the name of God the infinitly compassionate and merciful) as a means to internalize compassion and mercy in ourselves. This is the core of Islam and of the utmost importance today.

5 comments about On the Road With Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary.

1. Great book. One would need to read Rough Stone Rolling prior, but put the frosting on the cake. Received from Amazon in great shape in good time.



2. I suspect this review is more personal than will be really helpful to Amazon readers. I write more to the the man than about the book.
   
   Professor Bushman is a deep thinker. I am impressed by his dedication to his profession (and why shouldn't he be dedicated), and to his faith.
   
   I also appreciated his candid discussion of his foibles and vanities. I think I begin to see that great things are accomplished by those who continue to "show up" as much as by those with genius (though I think Professor Bushman has plenty of genius). I get a chuckle from thinking of him checking his Amazon ranking because I'm just sure that I would do exactly the same thing. Isn't it just too human of us to want to know where we are "ranked," how we stack up against others.
   
   Perhaps the most compelling part of this book, though, is Brother Bushman's obvious efforts to be true to his convictions and spread the word in ways that are consistent with his academic AND spiritual views. I find him to be living up to the Mormon motto that "all things are spiritual to God."
   
   Well done, Professor. You are a credit to your faith.



3. Richard Bushman has published a brief account of dealing with his book, "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling." I have read several other accounts of author's process of writing and reacting (John Steinbeck most notably), but have not felt that I reached the heart and soul of a man as this book does with Richard Bushman. He leaves nothing out.
   
   Most interesting are his attempts to deal with an anti-Mormon audience vs. conservative Mormons. His motivations are pure and having read "Rough Stone Rolling," I think he has pulled off a major accomplishment. He is a great and sincere man. He certainly is at the forefront of LDS historians and scholars.



4. This brief memoir (140 pages including the index) is a book about a book--Bushman's Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)--and the reaction it generated from Mormons and non-Mormons of various sorts during the author's yearlong promotional tour. On the Road will obviously be of greatest interest to those acquainted with Bushman or who at least have read Rough Stone Rolling; but the volume may also appeal to those curious about contemporary non-fiction book publishing or who are interested in how contemporary Mormon intellectuals try to sort out the more awkward aspects of their faith.
   
   Bushman confesses to having a "sensitive temperament," and he is sometimes so revealing that the reader feels on the edge of voyeurism. For instance, Bushman expresses his frustration at forgetting his cell phone charger, he regularly checks the Amazon.com rankings of his book, and he compares the quality of his own interviews with those of President George W. Bush: "He seemed unsure and forced in his answers....Sitting before a reporter who was going to be more critical, he faltered, and I do the same. I also thought it was partly because he is not entirely honest. He keeps thinking of the criticisms of his statements and is not certain he is answering satisfactorily. As I watched I was of course applying these observations to myself." (94) The volume is full of what one nineteenth-century after-dinner speaker called "carriage speeches"--the revised discourses he made to himself on the way home in his carriage.
   
   Bushman includes curious speculation about the nature of ultimate reality (60-62), which concludes with his pronouncement that "Mormons are not the only source of light" and that "Christ radiates throughout the world, through many voices." Yet he is willing enough to play down such sentiments for the present when Mormonism is "under attack from evangelical Christians." Bushman also expresses discomfort at Joseph Smith's polyandry and yet, for unspecified reasons, he swallows Smith's angels and golden plates whole. In the end, Bushman admits that by writing Rough Stone Rolling for both Mormons and non-Mormons, he attracted educated believers but lost readers at "both ends of the spectrum"--conservative Mormons who wanted an unsullied prophet with supernatural gifts and non-Mormons who were confirmed in their previous belief that Smith was only a charlatan.



5. All biographies are written through the eyes of the biographer. They tell as much about the writer as the subject. Hence, biographies on Joseph Smith run the gamut of opinions. Bushman has his own, and this diary really helps to understand his thoughts on writing and promoting Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. It would be great if every biography (and history book, for that matter) came with a personal diary by the author like this one. History is not a set of facts, it is a story told by someone.
   
   The extreme conserative Mormons will not like Bushman's scholarly approach, and those who pass too quickly on Joseph Smith as a fraud will call Bushman an apologetic, but I think the majority of us in the middle like RSR, and will really like this diary. Seeing the personal side of a biographer so important to American religious studies is a great opportunity. It's also not every day when you come across someone from a big university like Columbia who is also humble.

No comments about No Small Snakes: A Journey Into Spiritual Warfare.

5 comments about The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals.

1. In Notebook 17, Merton writes "I am thrown into contradiction:/ to realize it is a mercy,/ to accept it is love,/ to help others do the same is compassion." (269) From a year or two before he died, this recognition shows what his journals, excerpted here from the seven complete volumes, chart. These take you beyond the more familiar writings that made Merton famous, and show by extension his more frail, doubting, and pensive side.
   
   These pages begin in 1939-41, as he wrestles with being rejected by the Franciscans, works with the poor, reads and thinks at Columbia and upstate New York, and decides to enter the Trappists. His fervor as a recent convert energizes his visit to Cuba. He is full of ideas and energy, but seeks and needs focus. Early on, he realizes the trouble with a journal. If it's written for publication, "then you can tear pages out of it, emend it, correct it, write with art. If it is a personal document, every emendation amounts to a crisis of conscience and a confession, not an artistic correction."(12/4/1940; p. 21) He decides to keep his diary for posterity, for others to read.
   
   The second chapter, although dated 1941-1952, begins five years after his entrance to the Order, at the end of 1946. He has written his soon to be bestselling memoir, and prepares for the fame that he desires but recoils from. His ordination in 1949 enlivens his spirits, and monastery at this point has not wearied him. Even then, the wish for solitude begins to take hold, to be apart from what will be, in the wake of "The Seven Storey Mountain," a rush of aspirants for Gethsemani Abbey. Ironically or justifiably, he will be appointed Master of Novices and later of Scholastics, the students attracted by his very writings. Surprisingly, he writes little of the daily conferences and dealings with his fellow monks in this journal, perhaps out of respect for their confidings, but also, one suspects, out of a disenchantment with the noise, the cheese factory, the tractors and the press of new faces into what had been for him the place where he sought to be alone with God.
   
   This contradiction drives him towards a hermitage on the property, a compromise he battles out. He is famous, and he seeks anonymity. He wants a public to speak to, and welcomes visits. He learns that his freedom allows him to go out on the town with his friends, and temptations will arise as his freedom increases, and his vocation is crucially tested.
   
   1951 sparks a burst of mystical longing. His journals become more contemplative, as his time alone increases and his duties to the Abbey lessen somewhat. By the mid-1950s, he is living full-time at the hermitage. He thrives on study and contemplation. "Perhaps the Book of Life, in the end, is the book of what one has lived, and, if one has lived nothing, he is not in the Book of Life."(7/17/1956) He reads wisdom from the Eastern Christian and Asian traditions.
   
   Musings on Boris Pasternak, Marxism and Latin American struggles begin to enter his journal, followed by Civil Rights and antiwar activist reports. He wishes to be drawn into the world he once thought he would and could leave behind. His advice is sought out by many, and the retreat becomes instead a visitor's center. This is partially by choice, and partially by fame.
   
   The reforms of Vatican II appear to have come slowly to the Order and not altogether smoothly. He laments the end of Latin prayers and Gregorian chant; he records Dan Berrigan saying a non-canonical Mass circa `66 that presages the daring poses of relevance that unsettle Merton, who eschews violence and grandstanding by his more radical, media-hungry, confreres.
   
   But, he knows that he can no longer remain within the walls of the monastery in this time of change and tumult. He wrestles with loyalties. On the fourteenth anniversary of his ordination, he feels defeated. Untraditional, unable to conform, he agonizes. "Perhaps that is good. I am not a J.F. Powers character. But the frustration is the same." Although neither Greene's whiskey priest nor a despairing curate as in Bernanos, his sincerity seems a charade. He acts a lie. Depressions grow as he nears fifty. "People think I am happy." He does seek solace in the Mass. "I suppose that in the end what I have done is that I have resisted the superimposition of a complete priestly form, a complete monastic pattern. I have stubbornly saved myself from becoming absorbed in the priesthood, and I do not know if this was cowardice or integrity. There seems to be no real way for me to tell." (5/26/1963; pp. 206-7) The next few years of revolt and reaction outside the monastery and travel within and beyond its no longer totally enclosed walls will test his indecision severely and unexpectedly.
   
   He falls in love and- although not explicitly stated in these excerpts- consummates a relationship with a nurse who seems about half his age, who cares for him in a Louisville hospital in the spring of 1966. These are the most human and gripping entries of the volume. We witness in the first-person- if at an oblique angle that increases the perspective of realism-- an intelligent, tender, and righteous man break his vows, and then his promises to renew his commitment at great personal and psychic and physical sacrifice. He learns to treat "M" with dignity and does the right thing by her and himself, and reconciles his failing with the immediate joy he has foolishly if understandably embraced briefly.
   
   In his fifth decade, Merton grows up. "Vocation is more than just a matter of being in a certain place and wearing a certain type of costume. There are too many people in the world who rely on the fact that I am serious about deepening an inner dimension of experience that they desire and is closed to them. It is not closed to me: this is a gift that has been given me not for myself but for everyone, even including M." Tempted again to sneak into the city to see her, he realizes: "In the end I would ruin her along with myself."(6/22/1966; p. 295) Here, Merton's saintliness shows itself most movingly to me. I recognize my own faults in his, and now realize his own integrity. If you have only read "Seven Storey Mountain," you only know the honeymoon period. The journals show the whole committment, the lifetime after the infatuation wears off.
   
   In November 1968, a month and a day before his death, he records during his visit to the Dalai Lama in exile the three types of "bodhicitta." Kingly ones save one's self and then others. Boatmen ferry themselves with others into salvation. Shepherds guide others first and enter salvation last. I think of Merton, so near unawares his own sudden "liberation," as one who by his writings and example led many into spiritual heights.
   
   These pages record how he labored, lonely among hundreds of other monks. How many, I wonder, who resented his popularity, worshipped his celebrity, or benefitted from his writing and the nights of loneliness that flowed into his pages? He lived as a flawed monk among others no less so, and this obvious but gradual admission comes to bring him and his community and so many other millions of readers the past fifty years the grace to accept the need for guides wiser than us to help lead us into nirvana.
   



2. Rather than review the book _The Intimate Merton_, I have chosen to review the persona who presents himself within these pages. For it is this persona that has attracted readers to his works, and through his works, to his life. If we are to profit at all from a man's personal journals, we must be certain that first he intends to be truthful and forthright about the time's of his life. And we are not to be dissappointed here by the subject of this work, as he assiduously presents his story with his most intimate thoughts.
   
   We see, as the title of this review reflects, a man who has become entranced by his own idea of himself and his vocation, at once both a passionate writer and a solitary monk, bound to live the same day over and over again until he got it right. We see this reflected in the editor's introduction when they say: "He got up and fell down, he got up and fell down, he got up over and over again." He was as much a product of his times and the events that molded and influenced him as he was a simple human being longing for release. Only toward the end of his life, though, did he begin to travel down the road toward learning about who he really was, as opposed to the persona he carried around with him the majority of his life. His journals, condensed here from the seven that were ultimately published, are a testiment to how not to lead the spiritual life, and for that honesty of truthfulness with which these entries are presented, we are in debt to the man himself.
   
   What the reader learns of Thomas Merton the man and the Trappist monk is that he was as sincere about what he wanted to accomplish with his life as he was in leaving us with a candid accounting of that life. His sincere wish can be summed up in an entry made in December of 1946 in which he states: "Meanwhile, for myself I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude -- to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face." What we learn about the truth of this sentiment is that Merton spent the majority of his twenty-seven years as a monk searching for that silence of peace into which to merge himself, but that he only on rare occasions found it. For the most part, his days were taken up with endless rounds of duties and projects which kept him busy and estranged from the solitude which he sought, and yet it was only in the final years of his life that he was finally able to begin to realize that solitude through having separated himself from the monastic community at Gethsemani and living at a private hermitage on the property.
   
   We are shown this through such passages as the following, in which a forty-eight year old Merton laments the anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood: "Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my Ordination to the priesthood. . . . I have certainly not fitted into the conventional -- or even traditional -- mold. Perhaps that is good. I am not a J. F. Powers character. Yet the frustration is the same. (I do not know if I am a George Bernanos character. I am not a Graham Greene character.) But this business of defeat is there and I see it is perhaps in some way permanent. As if in a way my priestly life has been sad and fruitless -- the defeat and failure of my monastic life. (Perhaps. For after all how do I know?) I have a very real sense that it has all been some kind of a lie, a charade. With all my blundering attempts at sincerity, I have actually done nothing to change this."
   
   Repeatedly, we are shown instances of this kind of self-admonishment throughout the latter sections of the book, and after a while, we begin to wonder "will he ever learn?" In that same journal entry we find the following, perhaps unparalleled in its honesty and self-disgust in the annals of autobiographical works: "Probably the chief weakness has been lack of real courage to bear up under the attention of monastic and priestly life. Anyway, I am worn down. I am easily discouraged. The depressions are deeper, more frequent. I am near fifty. People think I am happy." This was Merton as he appeared to himself on his worst days. Fortunately for him, these moments were as fleeting and impermanent as the very thoughts that went into expressing them. And yet his genius is that he shows us his struggle, time and again, to bear up under the task he has outlined for himself.
   
   He is aware that his life is artificial in many ways and that the circumstances under which he has agreed to live have contributed to this artificialness. "I am convinced that the tensions of our community life are delusions and obsessions because of the unreality of our activities -- the basic unreality of our relationships. Unreal because much too artificial and contrived." Yet we see by these many observations that he is honestly seeking to evaluate his life in the manner of a genuine contemplative.
   
   On occasion, he shows us some glimmer of hope as in the following entry from June of 1963: "Identity. I can see now where the work is to be done. I have been coming here into solitude to find myself, and now I must also lose myself: not simply rest in the calm, the peace, the identity that is made up of my experienced relationship with nature in solitude. This is healthier than my 'identity' as a writer or a monk, but it is still a false identity, though it has a temporary meaning and validity. It is the cocoon that masks the transition stage between what crawls and what flies." It was during this next period of his life, the last five years, that he began coming upon some of the ideas that helped him to begin putting the pieces of his life's puzzle together.
   
   As it is always darkest before the dawn, at the turn of the year to 1964 we find the forty-nine year old Merton once again lamenting his situation: ". . . twenty-two years of relative confusion, often coming close to doubt and infidelity, agonized aspirations for 'something better,' criticism of what I have, inexplicable inner suffering that is largely my own fault, insufficient efforts to overcome myself, inability to find my way, perhaps culpably straying off into things that do not concern me." Yet even here he is on the brink of a discovery, for just a few short weeks later his contemplations begin to yield some much needed light. The darkness begins to lift ever so slightly as he makes the realization that his "real self" was nothing other than "the self that one is. . . . However, the emperical self is not to be taken as fully 'real' either. Here is where the illusion begins." It is during this time period that he begins to explore the religious traditions of China, Tibet, Japan, and ancient India, and the light that he has been seeking is about to dawn for him.
   
   Yet for all his spiritual wandering during the next few years, for all his reading and digesting of new concepts and writing books on Taoism and Zen Buddhism, the hold and lure of Christian imagery and conceptual iconography keeps calling him back over and over again. When all else fails comprehension, he returns to the familiar. Even so, his subconscious mind is working on all he is learning, churning it over, integrating certain ideas, seeking for common ground with the already familiar.
   
   For perhaps the first time in his monastic career, he was beginning to realize what his real work in this contemplative tradition was all about: "It would do no good to anyone if I just went around talking -- no matter how articulately -- in this condition. There is still so much to learn, so much deepening to be done, so much to surrender. . . . The best thing I can give to others is to liberate myself from the common delusions and be, for myself and for them, free. Then grace can work in and through me for everyone." He added the preceding journal entry in late June of 1968, just a little over five months before his untimely passing. And what is sad is that he was never to realize this accomplishment in his lifetime. And yet in the same breath, what was hopeful is that he realized this -- what he needed to accomplish -- before his passing, as he wrote in July of that same year: "I have to go my own way in terms of needs that to me are fundamental: need to live a life of prayer, need to liberate myself from my own 'cares' and 'unique' need for authentic monastic solitude (not mere privacy), and need for a real understanding and use of Asian insights in religion."
   
   He arrived in the Orient in October of 1968, where he was to spent the better part of two months meeting with various Eastern religious, including an unprecedented three audiences with the Dalai Lama. His experience in the Orient was a much needed education for Merton as he began to reassess his own possibilities for his continuation in the contemplative life back home. Far from being indisputably drawn to the East, his roots were calling him back to the West. But it would not be the same there as it had been. There would of necessity need to be changes made in order to suit his new understanding of what he needed to accomplished. Ironically, he was never to return to Kentucky and the monastery at Gethsemani, but rather to end his days in Bangkok, accidentally electrocuted on December 10th, 1968. On that day he found peace from this life.



3. Last May I visited Gethsemane Abbey where Thomas Merton lived his life as a monk. I wanted the opportunity to see Thomas Merton's hermitage, where he wrote some of his greatest writings. I guess the image of the writer in me decided that I would be inspired by visiting the beloved private space of one of the twentieth century's most famous and influential spiritual writers. I'd be inspired to finish my novel, write a spiritual treatise or two, and it would all be due to my visit to Merton's hermitage. Far fetched? Perhaps, but you'd be surprised at the ideas that come to mind after driving from Boston to Bardstown, Kentucky, alone. Sixteen hours of driving spread over two days can produce all sorts of grand ideas. Well, the hermitage was in use and I wouldn't be able to visit it and since I was at the abbey for a retreat, the hermitage would probably have been a distraction. Anyone who has ever read Merton knows what he thought of distractions, so it was probably in keeping with the spirit of Merton's life and message that I didn't visit the hermitage, but something interesting did happen when I was visiting. I went for a walk and passed through the cemetery where the monks are buried. I wasn't paying all that much attention but I did look down and saw a simple white cross with the name Fr. Louis and the year 1968 on it. I was standing where Thomas Merton was buried. Suddenly a man I admired as a priest, writer, and person seemed more real and human which is what I believe gives Merton such an appeal to so many. He knew what the human heart was searching for, which is the appeal of his writings, yet he was not some sort of remote guru. He was human like everyone else and had his triumphs, but also his struggles.
   
   Thomas Merton's diaries are essential for understanding Merton. He kept journals throughout his lifetime, and many of his entries have been published. The earlier entries are somewhat pious and sanitized, due to his initial monastic fervor and the fact that his superiors were his final editors. Sometimes the superiors are accused of censoring, and Merton himself believes this from time to time, but it really wasn't censoring as we think of it, at least in the United States. He was allowed to write for the good of the Trappist order and the Abbey of Gethsemane, not for his own fulfillment, so those who asked him to write for this purpose did have the right to say what would and would not be for the good of the order. Yes they were too restrictive, and no doubt they deleted essential information that is now lost, but that was the reality of religious life at the time. As the rules became more relaxed, Merton's writings expressed more of his struggles, foibles, and the challenges he faced in life. The later journal entries are hardly the sanitized entries that make up THE SIGN OF JONAS. Brother Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo have edited what remains of Merton's journals and the result is a seven volume set of Merton's most personal writings. THE INTIMATE MERTON contains excerpts from the seven volumes that give the reader a general idea of Merton's life from his point of view and give the readers a glimpse behind the great writer and spiritual figure.
   
   This particular volume arranges the materials chronologically and presents the material in the order in which it was written rather than piecing the entries together to form a biography. Some of the entries are mini-masterpieces, others are almost fragments, but anyone who has kept a journal knows that this is part of journaling.
   
   I do have one suggestion for readers who purchase this book. Make sure you have a basic outline of Merton's life available when reading this volume. The editors have decided to let Merton's writings stand on their own, but for people not familiar with Merton's life and writings, it's easy to get lost. There is very little biographical information in the book which can make the information a bit overwhelming. If the book contained a few paragraphs of commentary at the beginning of each section to situate the reader, it would be helpful, but even without the commentary, it's a great introduction to the journals of Thomas Merton.



4. The book `The Intimate Merton', edited by Brother Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo, is a great encapsulation of the journals which Thomas Merton, monk, writer, activist and spiritual guide (I believe he would eschew the word leader, kept from the time he began considering a vocation (both as a monk and as a writer) to the time of his death nearly thirty years later.

   The book is broken into sections reflective of Merton's monastic life. Each section is composed of selections, representative and/or significant, from his regular daily journals. Merton actually kept voluminous journals (published in seven thick volumes), much of which served as a basis and self-reflective sounding board for his other writings. This book is a user-friendly spiritual autobiography, distilled from the wisdom gained over twenty-nine years of teaching, prayer, reflection, prayer, writing, prayer, activity, and yet more prayer.

   Merton was not (and still is not) universally loved, even by the church and monastic hierarchies who claim him as a shining example of one of their own. Merton's life is a quest for meaning, and quest for unity before God of all peoples, and a quest for love. These were not always in keeping with the practices of the church, which found itself more often than Merton cared for embroiled in political action in support of the state, or at least the status quo.

   Merton was a Trappist monk. The Trappists derive their name from la Trappe, the sole survivor of a reformed Cistercian order in France about the time of the Revolution. This order of Cistercians (white-robed monks) had fairly strict observances which included the usual monastic trappings of vows of chastity, stability, obedience, poverty -- and a regime of prayer and psalm recitals coupled with daily work and study that is not at all for the faint-hearted (or faint-spirited). It was to this order that Merton pledged himself, in his beginning search for meaning and fulfillment.

   `The great work of sunrise again today.
   The awful solemnity of it. The sacredness. Unbearable without prayer and worship. I mean unbearable if you really put everything aside and see what is happening! Many, no doubt, are vaguely aware that it is dawn, but they are protected from the solemnity of it by the neutralising worship of their own society, their own world, in which the sun no longer rises and sets.'

   Poetry in prose -- this passage, from the section on The Pivotal Years, reflects a searching nearing a conclusion, but still far from grasping, and far from complete. It also reflects the need for sharing, the drive toward caring, the simplest of things in the world, available to all, free of charge -- and most will never take possession.

   God is calling in the sunrise. Merton recognises the call. He wants to deliver this sunrise in a package to the world. But he cannot. This is Merton's endless frustration, and the drive to do more, while yet being, as he would say himself, selfish in wanting to grasp it for himself, too. His time in the Hermitage, a time during which he was removed even from the company of fellow monks -- reflects this duality of vocation in Merton. He recognises that in some ways, it is an escape, but other ways, a fulfillment.

   Even late in his life, after he was called away from his solitude at the Hermitage, because the world needed him, he was still humble and seeking. After nearly three decades of monastic practice and reflection on the level that Merton had done, one would expect a certain 'expertise' to have permeated his thinking. And yet, he would write:

   `I have to change the superficial ideas and judgments I have made about the contemplative religious life, the contemplative orders. They were silly and arbitrary and without faith.'

   This, on the basis of one retreat in December of 1967, with laypersons and clerics and monastics outside his Trappist order -- this is his conclusion, his resolute determination to not be boxed in, even by his own thinking. The true search can lead anywhere, even to the conclusion that one has been wrong all along.

   And yet, Merton was not wrong. There was value in each of his spiritual discoveries as he discovered them. They still resonate for all of us today.

   `Since Hayden Carruth's reprimand I have had more esteem for the crows around here, and I find, in fact, that we seem to get on much more peacefully. Two sat high in an oak beyond my gate as I walked on the brow of the hill at sunrise saying the Little Hours. They listened without protest to my singing of the antiphons. We are part of a menage, a liturgy, a fellowship of sorts.'

   Near the end of his life, Merton was becoming more and more one with all around him, with all of God's creation, with nature, with people, with friends and strangers. And yet, he missed his privacy, his time for personal reflection and solitude.

   `Everyone now knows where the hermitage is, and in May I am going to the convent of the Redwoods in California. Once I start traveling around, what hope will there be?'

   Merton had premonitions that 1968 was a year `that things are finally and inexorably spelling themselves out', prophetic indeed, for in the same year the world lost Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and Brother Thomas Merton. He never was able to reclaim the solitude, pouring himself out for his friends ('what greater love hath anyone...'), who he counted as the entire world.

   May Brother Thomas' journey enlighten your own.




5. One may wonder why another book on Thomas Merton, one of the most self-chronicled lives of the twentieth century, is needed, but The Intimate Merton serves a valuable purpose. Only academics and fanatical devotees of the famous writer and monk will have the time and interest to read all seven volumes of his personal journals. And yet, as this selection of entries from them demonstrates, Merton's journals are a treasury of autobiographical revelation, psychological honesty, and spiritual insight.
   
   Just a few of the more memorable entries justify the book. These include an hilarious account of Merton the non-driver taking a jeep for a spin, a beautiful description of a night watch as a dark night of the soul, and Merton's sober yet grateful meditations on his 50th birthday.
   
   Nevertheless, it is the sweep of years, the chronicle of a soul, that make these meditations most interesting. The Intimate Merton wisely focuses on the journal entries from the 1960s, material not covered by The Seven Storey Mountain and other earlier works. Thus we see a self-portrait of the older Merton wrestling with his need to be an individual versus his need to love and be loved, fitfully learning to accept his failures and to appreciate the gifts of others, and searching for his home in this world and beyond.
   
   Thomas Merton was a complicated, Thoreauvian figure who considered himself to be, among other things, an "amateur theologian." Yet an amateur is essentially a lover, and Merton, for all his faults and doubts, was certainly a lover of God. Other lovers of God will enjoy tracing his spiritual journey through these pages.

3 comments about The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang.

1. A great book from a prophet of our times. Substainable agriculture started in the Amazon with unique invention of Terra Pretta thousands of years ago. Truly a person inspired by God.



2. The story of Sister Dorothy Stang takes us to a time and place unfamiliar to most of us. The description of life in the Amazon forest in the late 20th century is a stark reminder that there is still much injustice in the world. We owe so much to those, like Sister Dorothy, who take it upon themselves to try to make life better for the oppressed. A heroically beautiful but sad story.



3. just finished this book. it is very well written. i benefited tremendously from reading this important story. Dorothy's life was very inspirational and will help you to help others and fight for right.

5 comments about Men of Science Men of God: Great Scientists of the Past Who Believed the Bible.

1. I found this book very interesting and encouraging--these are the fathers of science--the men who pioneered our scientific method and thought. It was encouraging to see them as recognizing the role of God in themselves and their work.



2. The late Henry Morris, a creationist with no background in biology or history (his degree is in hydraulic engineering), levels false implications of evolution with evils (or Morris's preceived evils). This book is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on the science of evolutionary biology using long dead mens' faith as some kind of attempt to place Christianity on a pedestal (funny how he didn't get into other faiths, as if science cares if someone is Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or what have you). The bulk of it is something a middle school student could have done as a report; as for accuracy I would suggest reading biographies by actual historians. Someone who is willing to lie about evolution (e.g., Henry Morris) should not be taken seriously in any scholarly field that he is not formally trained in.



3. Wonderful, fascinating, little-known information lies in this book! Evolutionists would have society think religion (and Christianity specifically) has only ever hindered science, yet this book shows that the best founders of our modern scientific disciplines were motivated to explore the world explicitly because of their faith in God.
   
   These men were not Christian out of the cultural norms of their respective societies, these men sincerely had a zealous faith that far exceeded their peers in their day.
   
   This books forever terminates the image of anti-scientific, Christian knuckle-draggers; a must-read.



4. Some qualifications for opining to start. I have read this book and I am a public school teacher with 9 years of teaching elementary school. I have a BA in Psychology and a M Ed.
   
   This is a great little book. It is important that we understand the beliefs of the scientists as well as their backgrounds. Contrary to popular opinion, scientists aren't devoid of beliefs and everyone's beliefs influence their perspectives. This can be readily seen by perusing these reviews. Our beliefs also determine our actions which makes being certain of their veracity all the more important as they will dictate the course of our lives and our destiny.
   
   These scientists stand head and shoulders above many of their peers. It is important for all of us to understand what they believed and why they chose those beliefs.
   
   I highly recommend this book and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did, and do every time I read it. It is a short, interesting, and fun read. Bon appetit!



5. This book, written by Henry Morris and Chuckie Darwin, gives new perspective of creationism. The science of intelligent design shows the blueprint used by an "intelligent designer" to create the universe. Periodically, the creatures designed, both evolved and changed. Monkey may or may not have evolved into man. But various creatures have changed as God planned they would. God can make these plans, because ... well, ... He is God!

4 comments about Eric Liddell (Men of Faith).

1. Encouraging for all ages - as a read aloud even. The challenges, the excitement, the blessing... My 14 year old enjoyed the book a great deal, too.



2. Poor writing and condescending (if not racist) attitudes toward the Chinese ruined this book. It was recommended as a language arts book for my 8th grader, but I will not let her read this account. Eric Liddell comes across as a cardboard figure in this book. I will look for another book that will do justice to the story of Eric Liddell's life and his faith in God.



3. Eric Liddell was (and still is) a shining example of what a person can do if he will use the gifts God has given him/her. It is too bad that this book did not live up to the potential that it could have been. There was not enough documentation of events, and the author used descriptions of Eric and events in his life that possibly were misleading, ie. ...but the thinly veiled criticism in the press turned to sensational acclaim when Eric entered-and won-a race for which he was completely untrained... Anyone who knows the story knows that Eric knew of his being in the 400 meters months in advance of the Olympics. True enough, it was quite a fantastic feat,however, over-sensationalism only lends weakness to this great story.



4. An inspiring true story ruined by bad writing. Is this book written for children? Did the author do any research because there is no souce documented. Anyhow, this is still a wonderful true story.

1 comments about Blue Like Jazz CD: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.

1. Like Anne Lamott, I love Donald Miller for his honesty and ability to laugh at himself and accept himself and others. The collective Christian community does far too much judging and not enough loving, and Miller doesn't mind saying so. He touches the tenets of the Christian faith with the soft candor of a good friend. One of my favorite thoughts he includes is that (and this goes for everyone) if Jesus met him on the street, he finally felt that Jesus would like him. We ministry folks always aim to communicate this critical point, but lack something real and raw to make it stick. Kudos to Donald Miller.

3 comments about Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person And His Work.

1. The person of St. Thomas Aquinas is both fascinating and admirable. His work is first-rate. Jean Pierre Torrell's book St. Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 1, The Person and His Work is a must-have for a person who wishes to understand faith, wonders if we can expect good things from the Lord, and who loves the same thing St. Thomas loved: wisdom.
   
   Torrell's Volume 1 of a two volume set clearly demonstrates how the life of Aquinas was and still is astonishing. St. Thomas experienced the peace of "intellectual charity" (p. 49). The stuff of his live involved "the very concrete exercise of his intellect" (p. 50) which produced 13 written pages a day with 350 words-per-page during a four year period in Paris (1268-72). Yes, this is astonishing, especially when a person reads what the deep and logically precise texts from that time.
   
   St. Thomas "spent most of his time writing" (p. 241) and "prayed" before every work (p. 284). He was assisted by a "team of secretaries" (p. 241) such the Dominicans Raymond Severi, Nicholas of Marsillac and Peter of Andria. Aquinas was prepared to write and compose up to ninety [90] "works" (p. 49) by St. Albert the Great in Cologne, Germany (1248-1252). According to Torrell, "Saint Albert had a considerable influence on him" (p. 25).
   
   Torrell's St. Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 1, is an excellent resource for Thomistic philosophers, since Torrell's book contains a contemporary catalogue of Aquinas' works (by Emery, pages 331-361), gives an accurate historical sketch of Aquinas' in sixteen easy-to-read chapters, is based on the finest historical research from Leonard Boyle, Dominique Chenu, Hyacinthe Dondaine and others, and shows how Aquinas was a down-to-earth person. While the sailors on a ship were becoming fearful of a "storm at sea," Aquinas "trusted in Providence and was not troubled" (p. 279). When he had a painful tooth, he "obtained liberation from it through prayer"(p. 280). And when his niece Francesca wanted to travel from Naples to nearby Pozzuoli, Aquinas helped her get a passport (p. 277).
   
   For a person who is serious about Thomistic philosophy Torrell's book provides a historical overview, a brief chronology, an excellent bibliography, an index of Aquinas' works and dependable source for current and accurate information about the "Doctor angelicus" and Angelic Doctor (p. 325).



2. Torrell has provided the philosophical community with a most thoroughly detailed account of one of the greatest thinkers to ever walk this planet.

   From the youth of Aquinas to his death, Torrell takes his reader on a historical journey through the life, events, thoughts, and works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Torrell uses the best resources available, and painstakingly documents all his sources. What is more, if certain things have been attributed to legend or mere 'story telling for the sake of story telling,' Torrell makes his reader aware of this fact. Thus, his research is honest, and quite detailed.

   Every dispute between Aquinas and the Church or other clergy is included. Aquinas' years in Paris are detailed, the things he taught, the people he associated with, his travels, his writings, his habits (which have been documented), his writing methods, etc. all are detailed in this account. In fact, I do not think there is one stone left unturned that can actually be turned in the life of Aquinas, that Torrell has not touched.

   Toward the end of this work, which it should be pointed out is written and organized in a nice chronological fashion, Torrell makes mention of those groups who after Aquinas' death formed cults in their following of Aquinas. Moreover, I enjoyed Torrell's account of Aquinas because it was real. What I mean by that is Torrell did not elevate Aquinas to an 'other than human' level and put him high on a pedestal. Rather, Torrell painted a picture of the real Aquinas, warts and all.

   If you are wanting a detailed account of Aquinas and his whole life, works, events, etc. then this is the only text you may ever need (although there are others available which would be very helpful as well - i.e. James Weisheipl's account "Friar Thomas D'Aquino, which has been considered the standard biography). I highly recommend Torrell's work and wished I could have given it another star!




3. Torrell's book is a two-fold masterpiece, but it is not for the faint-of-intellect. Die-hard Thomists will find the historical exegesis of scholarship on Aquinas' life and work to be the most fundamentally rigorous to date. Interspersed within this technical exposition are invaluable insights into the person of Aquinas as a man of faith first and foremost. For me, this book was a joy to read and I am utilizing it in a graduate seminar I will be teaching on Aquinas. That being said, I must warn the non-Thomist reader that they may find this book dry at times in its extreme historical exposition. The best approach to this book for the average reader is to skim through to find the gems contained within. Hence, I highly recommend this book to fans of Thomas Aquinas and cannot wait for the translation of Torrell's second volume to appear.