Book description
"This one door is the door of the Palace of Nowhere. It is the
door of God. It is our very self, our true self called by God to perfect
union with himself. And it is through this door we secretly enter in
responding to the saving call to 'Come with me to the Palace of Nowhere
where all the many things are one.'" As a young man of eighteen,
James Finley left home for an unlikely destination: the Abbey of
Gethsemani, where Thomas Merton lived as a contemplative. Finley stayed
at the monastery for six maturing years and later wrote this book in
order to share with his readers a taste of what he had learned on his
spiritual journey under the guidance of one of the great religious
figures of our day. At the heart of the quest for spiritual identity are
Thomas Merton's illuminating insights--leading from an awareness of the
false and illusory self to a realization of the true self. For over
twenty-five years Merton's Palace of Nowhere has been the standard for
exploring, reflecting on, and understanding this rich vein of Merton's
thought. Dog-eared, tattered, underlined copies are found on the
bookshelves of spiritual searchers everywhere. Now this Silver
Anniversary edition brings this classic to a whole new generation, with
a new foreword by Br. Patrick Hart. James Finley is a clinical
psychologist in private practice in Santa Monica, California. Finley
spent a number of years under the spiritual direction of Thomas Merton,
and they were contemporaries during Finley's six years at the Abbey of
Gethsemani. In addition to his clinical practice, Finley leads
contemplative retreats and teaches throughout the United States and
Canada, and he is the author of many books. Brother Patrick Hart, O.
C.S. O., of the Abbey of Gethsemani, was a founding editor of The Merton
Annual and served for eleven years as editor of the journal Cistercian
Studies.
