November 8, 2023
From the desk of Thomas Brennan
Hello everyone,
I am writing to you today to tell you about an internet platform for writers and readers called Substack which I have recently discovered. Periodically I will be posting a column that I hope will provoke thought and meditation. More on the specifics in a moment.
To begin I must thank several people for leading me to this junction in my writing career. First is Frank Sanitate, who many of you know well from Jim Casey’s Signum Fidei emails. For several years he has been writing a column for a newspaper on life, education, business and sundry topics which caught his fancy. I admired his discipline to put his insights into the public forum and finally I am imitating him.
Second, is Amy Lee Kite, who most of you do not know at all, who has been writing her observations on this site in a venue entitled “Ocean in a Drop.” Her engaging writing is well worth a look.
Lastly, my wife, Ann who gave me a book.
As many of you know from experience it is difficult to find a suitable gift for an octogenarian. Two years ago on my birthday she presented me with The Power Broker by Robert Caro, the definitive biography of Robert Moses which runs about 1,100 plus pages and weighs about four pounds. Silently I murmured to myself “I will never read this.” Eight months later, as I read the last page, I was simultaneously elated and depressed; elated, because I had reached the end of this most fascinating book, and depressed because the only thing left to read was forty pages of intriguing footnotes. For the next year, as Ann and I drove around Long Island, I related to her some arcane details about the roads Robert Moses built. Finally, Ann said, “Tom, why don’t you just teach a course?” And so, after an absence of fourteen years I returned to the front of the classroom.
The course on Robert Moses was presented at the Worcester Institute for Senior Education (WISE). Instead of novice college students the participants had a lot of letters behind their names: Ph.D, MD, and JD and much wisdom to share. Evidently they were pleased and asked me if I would teach another course. Hence this column.
I plan to teach another course tentatively entitled Thomas Merton: Contemplative Monk or Activist Catholic. As I reread Merton’s autobiography, his official biography by Michael Mott and several of his journals, I plan to write some commentary on how Merton’s view of the world of the 1960s is still relevant to us today. As Merton wrote in his preface to Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, “I do not have clear answers to current questions. I do have questions, and, as a matter of fact, I think a man is known better by his questions than his answers.”
I think that you will agree that Thomas Merton can be a beacon in these turbulent times. I invite you to meditate with me.
Regards,
Thomas Brennan
Thank you for your support and kind words. I’m impressed with your desire to share knowledge by returning to the classroom and by sharing your writing here on Substack. I’m honored to be one of the writers whose work you will read here, and I look forward to being a reader of your posts here, as well.
I look forward to hearing your insights. Thomas Merton has deeply influenced my spiritual journey, particularly his later works merging East and West.