a series of talks on silent prayer and
contemplative living in today's world
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Thomas Merton and the Camera as a Tool
for Contemplation
Esther de Waal
A brief summary of the talk given at
Westminster Cathedral Hall, 25 October 2008.
©Esther de Waal 2008.
©Esther de Waal 2008.
Dr de Waal showed a selection of Thomas Merton's photographs, taken while he was living in a hermitage attached to the monastery of Getsemani in Kentucky, and which she linked to quotations from his writings. We hope that the few samples included below will give you a taste of her presentation.
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I looked at all this in great
tranquillity, with my soul and my spirit
quiet. For me landscape seems to be
important for contemplation. I have no scruples
about loving it.
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Each particular being, in
its individuality, its concrete nature and
entity, with all its own characteristics and its
private qualities and its own inviolable
identity, gives glory to God by being precisely
what He wants it to be here and now, in the
circumstances ordained for it by His Love and
His infinite Art.
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The woods save me, and the
sun and the snow.
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| We don’t have to run after
it. It is there all the time, and if we
give it time it will make itself known to us.
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My own personal task is to
praise God out of an inner centre of silence,
gratitude, and ‘awareness’.
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Page updated by hn on 19 January 2013