The Only Mind Worth Having: Merton and the Child Mind. By Fiona Gardner. Pp. xiv, 234, Cambridge, The Lutterworth Press, 2016, £18.75
This book had its genesis as a paper given at the International Thomas Merton Society Conference in 2013. Gardner takes Merton's belief that the child mind is the only one worth having (The Hidden Ground of Love, Harcourt Barace Jovanovich, 1993) and sets this against Christ's challenging...
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| Published in: | Heythrop Journal 2017, Vol.58 (5), p.852-853 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Review |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Request full text |
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| Summary: | This book had its genesis as a paper given at the International Thomas Merton Society Conference in 2013. Gardner takes Merton's belief that the child mind is the only one worth having (The Hidden Ground of Love, Harcourt Barace Jovanovich, 1993) and sets this against Christ's challenging command to become ‘as children’, and reflects on this as part of contemporary spirituality and spiritual practice. As Rowan Williams writes in his deeply felt Foreword, this is no nostalgic or sentimental desire on the part of Christ. It is by moving forward, or upward, rather than downwards or backwards that we can grow...The first chapter serves as an introduction to the three central ideas of the book: Jesus’ command, Thomas Merton, and ideas about the spirit of the child. The book is then divided into three parts headed respectively Understanding, Re‐Finding, and Becoming. |
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| ISSN: | 0018-1196 1468-2265 |