“Love is the call on our lives. And it’s a fierce call, a fierce love. And I believe that if we could speak more about that we could build a revolution that included people of faith and people of no faith.”
Tag Archives: solitude
Maybe it’s time for me to let go of Thomas Merton
Today marks 53 years since Merton died in Bangkok, Thailand. I wrote the following article originally published by The Christian Century on December 6, 2021. “How can we be sure younger generations learn about Thomas Merton?” Every time I show Day of a Stranger, the documentary film I made about the Trappist monk, I’m asked some form of this question. ViewersContinue reading “Maybe it’s time for me to let go of Thomas Merton”
Heart Work: A Conversation with Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows
“I long for the day we don’t need food pantries and we don’t need Black Lives Matter protest to state the obvious. Black Lives Matter and people should be fed and not hungry in the richest country in the world.”
Solitude in a Toolshed
Although the hunt for more solitude was a pattern in Merton’s life, the sense of “arrival” was palpable for him in rat-infested toolshed
Patient Endurance: A Conversation with Sister Barbara Jean LaRochester
Sister Barbara Jean LaRochester is a Carmelite nun in Baltimore, where she’s been a Catholic sister since 1972. Previously, she spent 17 years in Philadelphia as an active nun working in a Catholic hospital and teaching on the weekends. She was also a board member of the National Black Sisters Conference and was active in theContinue reading “Patient Endurance: A Conversation with Sister Barbara Jean LaRochester”
A Monkish Friendship: Fr. Charles Cummings, OCSO (1940-2020)
“The monastic night watch is good practice in the art of waiting, as we patiently look for the coming of dawn. Monks and nuns wait in the dark, longing for the light of dawn but unable to hasten its coming. No one can force the dawn or bring it about in any way. It dawnsContinue reading “A Monkish Friendship: Fr. Charles Cummings, OCSO (1940-2020)”
The Absurd Vocation
“One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement.” –Pauli Murray Coming off a week-long class on activism, organizing and social movements in Durham, North Carolina (and my first full year of seminary at CTS), I climb back into the quiet walls of a Kentucky monastery: Gethsemani Abbey. Here, the silence seeps into my bones likeContinue reading “The Absurd Vocation”
Carl McColman Interviews Cassidy Hall
How did you get inspired to create a film about Thomas Merton and his hermitage?
Encounters with Silence – Thomas Merton’s Hermitage
To go seeking for something which cannot be sought. To go on looking for something which cannot be found. To attempt to do something which cannot be done.
The Uncertainty of Silence
(This will be among the many essays featured in the forthcoming book Notes on Silence that I’m co-authoring with Patrick Shen which can be purchased here.) “…I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone…” Rainer Maria Rilke I was around 8 years old when I began to have reoccurring dreams aboutContinue reading “The Uncertainty of Silence”
Cassidy Hall 