FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM NOVEMBER 29, 2018 • KIDS & EDUCATION • THE QUEENS COURIER 39
kids & education
The lasting Queens legacy of a prominent Catholic thinker
BY CASSIDY KLEIN
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Flushing and Douglaston were once
home to Th omas Merton — a Catholic
mystic, poet and social activist whom
many consider to be one of the greatest
spiritual thinkers of the 20th century.
Merton lived as a Trappist monk in
Kentucky and wrote more than 60 books
and hundreds of articles over his lifetime.
His writings touch on a range of topics
from monastic spirituality to social justice
issues. His autobiography, “Seven Storey
Mountain,” has sold more than one million
copies.
Dec. 10 will mark the 50th anniversary
of Merton’s death and his “prophetic
voice” still speaks to millions of people
throughout the world.
“Merton forced me to confront the
question that I had no answer for,” said
Jackson Heights resident Doug Hertler.
“And that question was: ‘Who Am I?’”
Hertler, an actor and New York City
tour guide, wrote a one-man show called
“Merton and Me: A Living Trinity,”
which was performed for the fi rst time
in September at Corpus Christi Catholic
Church on the Upper West Side. He created
the show as an outlet to refl ect on
selfh ood and identity through the writings
of Merton.
“Merton taught me that it’s possible to
live a rich, prayerful interior life and be
fully engaged with the challenges that society
faces,” Hertler said. “Th ere is a way to
take your yearning that you have inside of
you to see the world become a kinder, more
unifi ed place, and you can do something
about it no matter what your vocation is.”
Merton was born in 1915 in Prades,
France. One year later, due to the
onslaught of World War I, the family
moved to an old house in Flushing on
Elder Avenue. Merton writes in Seven
Storey Mountain that “it was a small
house, very old and rickety, standing
under two or three high pine trees, in
Flushing, Long Island, which was then a
country town.”
His father, Owen Merton, was an artist
who painted many scenes of Long
Island, including “Snow-Buff eted House
in Flushing, N.Y.”
Merton moved back to Europe with
his father aft er his mother died when he
was still a child. He frequently returned
to Douglaston to visit his grandparents at
their home located at 241-16 Rushmore
Ave. in the summers.
During one of those summers, he attended
Zion Episcopal Church — located at
243-01 Northern Blvd. — where his father
had been an organist. He also went to the
Quaker Meeting House in Flushing —
located at 137-16 Northern Blvd. — as he
began to seriously wrestle with spirituality.
In 1935, Merton entered Columbia
University and converted to Catholicism
while there. At age 27, he entered the
Abbey of Gethsemani and lived a monk
for the rest of his life. He continued to
write about spirituality and current events
through a social justice lens.
Father Daniel Horan, a Franciscan
Friar and Th omas Merton Scholar, said
that New York City was an “anchor for
Merton’s understanding of Christian
social justice.”
Merton’s writing on violence and peace,
white privilege and structural racism are
still deeply relevant today, Horan said.
“Merton said if we want to work for
peace, we need to address the fear and violence
in our own hearts fi rst,” said Horan.
“He wrote that the root of all war is fear.
I think that’s powerful in an age where
there is so much division, so much hostility.
He also makes a very strong claim
about the Christian’s role in racism, particularly
white Christians, and the responsibility
they have to recognize that.”
Merton’s spiritual breath lingers in
Queens in people like Hertler who are
inspired by him to love those on the
margins and dwell with “the most diffi -
cult, and life-giving, questions we face as
humans.”
“I’m trying to, in my own way, bring the
depths of Merton’s spiritual life back into
the city as I talk to groups and mention his
name to anyone who has ears to listen,”
Hertler said. “Merton recognized the
value and the importance and intimacy
and love and joy of communication… in
seeing the world through the eyes of a person
who views things diff erently than us.”
Merton leaves us with a challenge to
love, Horan said.
“Love is the reason for my existence,
for God is love.” Merton writes in his
book, “Th e New Seeds of Contemplation.”
“Love is my true identity. Selfl essness is
my true self. Love is my true character.
Love is my name.”
Used with Permission of the Merton Legacy
Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at
Bellarmine University Thomas Merton (l.) with
the Dalai Lama. Merton was a Trappist monk
who lived part of his life in Queens.
link
