xt7vmc8rg61v https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7vmc8rg61v/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1962-05-10 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, May 10, 1962 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, May 10, 1962 1962 1962-05-10 2023 true xt7vmc8rg61v section xt7vmc8rg61v _+__
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ABBEY OF GETHSEMANI

TRAPPI ST, KENTUCKY

May 10, 1962

Dear Victor:

I was glad to get your letter, and Carolyn's Card about Johathan Greene came at the
same time. Thanks to you both.

You have certainly had a time with that engraving. I might have guessed that you
were still fighting it. The struggle and its issue show that you are not satisfied
with the possibility of finishing the print to your satisfaction. The steel engraving
looked promising, yet you are right. I think it is better for the book to be without
any illustration, and that in its simplicity it will say more than the picture which
cannot satisfy you, and which has never the less cost so much. I an gratefuk to you
for so much trouble. Whatever fruit it would have had in the finished engraving will
find its way in some hidden way into the book itself. I am returning the proofs, of
course without any correction.

I was thinking of writing you a note to find out what the news was‘and whether
you were coming down again soon. It is too late to get you here this baturday I suppose.
And on the 19th you will not want to come as‘that is just before your trip to the
east. What about June 2nd? or the following baturday?

J. will tell you about the book of essays on peace which seems to be coming along:
we have a good group of authors. I am just going to get down to the proofs of my own
contribution. But this business of writing about the war and peace issue is not much
fun. Nor should one expect it to be. Every once in a while you stop to think what you
have just said. It is unbelievable to be calmly talking about such issues as the
destruction of continents. Yet it is still more unbelievable not to be talking about
them when they so obviously threaten us.

More and more I see that it is not the moral principles which are at stake, but
more radically, the whole outlook of modern man, at least in America, and the basic assumpti
one which tend to guid e his thought, if it can be called thought. We are living in an
absurd dream, and a very bad one. And it is the fruit of all sorts of things we ought not
to have done. But the whole world is in turmoil, spiritually, morally, socially. we
are sitting on a thin crust above an immense lake of molten lava that is stirring and
getting ready to erupt. Nothing will stop this eruption. But at least we can refrain
from setting off bombs that will start it in some far worse way than it normally would.

In addition my higher superiors have suddenly decreed that a monk does not know
there is danger of war and consequently should not make any observations on the fact.
I am hoping neverthless to get a little book on the subject published, an observation
that has already been written, and comes before their hieratic utterance.

Here is a prayer which was read in Congress by a good man who was military
governor of the prefecture of Hiroshima and helped them rebuild the city. J. will
probably tell you more about him. I am also interested in the steps being taken by Leo
Szilard for peaceful policies in Washington. This seems to me to be about the sanest
thing that has come up so far. All the rest is either way out, like the CNVA ( the non-
violent movement, which is largely amoral and beat) or ineffectual like the more
solemn movements that do nothing.

Do let me know when I can expect to see you. I hope you have a good trip to New
York. J will be happy to see you.

With all blessings and best wishes, in Christ

Ftlwtv;o