Thomas Merton and The Complex Art of Simply Living

As a young monk, Thomas Merton translated and expanded a primer in Cistercian spirituality, called The Spirit of Simplicity. When he died suddenly in 1968, on the edges of a war zone, Merton left a legacy which bears testimony to his attention to the complexities of his own life and of the mid-twentieth-century world he inhabited, as he continued to seek and to live the spirit of simplicity.

This session will include a brief introduction to Merton, as we consider the complexities of his immersion in the spirit of simplicity.

Speaker Revd Dr Gary P. Hall is a Methodist minister and theological educator at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham. A former editor of The Merton Journal, he has taught and presented on Merton in the UK, Germany, India, US and Canada.