The Only Mind Worth Having: Thomas Merton and the Child Mind

The Only Mind Worth Having: Thomas Merton and the Child Mind

In The Only Mind Worth Having, Fiona Gardner takes Thomas Mertonâ€™s belief that the child mind is â€œthe only mind worth havingâ€ and explores it in the context of Jesusâ€™ challenging, paradoxical, and enigmatic command to become like small children. She demonstrates how Mertonâ€™s belief and Jesusâ€™ command can be understood as part of contemporary spirituality and spiritual practice. To follow Christâ€™s command requires a great leap of the imagination. Gardner examines what it might mean to make this leap when one is an adult without it becoming sentimental and mawkish, or regressive and pathological. Using both psychological and spiritual insights, and drawing on the experiences of Thomas Merton and others, Gardner suggests that in some mysterious and paradoxical way recovering a sense of childhood spirituality is the path towards spiritual maturity. The move from childhood spirituality to adulthood and on to a spiritual maturity through the child mind is a move from innocence to experience to organised innocence, or from dependence to independence to a state of being in-dependence with God.
Country USA
Brand Lutterworth Press
Manufacturer Lutterworth Press
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780718894412
ReleaseDate 2017-02-11

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