Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Thomas Merton concludes his essay, “In Silentio” (1956), with an appeal to the teachings of his twelfth century Cistercian predecessor, Isaac de l’Étoile. Isaac served as abbot of the Monastery of Notre Dame des Châteliers on the island of Ré. In Merton’s rendering, Isaac’s location in “a forlorn island monastery, lost amid the waves of the Atlantic,” situates his instruction about the silent movement of God in the created order. Merton’s cue signals a hermeneutic for reading and interpreting water imagery in the essay. This paper explores how Merton’s references to water in the essay symbolize the continuous divine activity of creation and recreation. For Merton, the movement of the Spirit of God at the moment of creation presents anew in the vastness of the ocean, the motion of the sea, and the surf on the shoreline; moreover, these physical markers emerge as illustrative sites of reflection on the creative place of the human soul that tease the imagination and prompt response.