The Monk in the Marriott

This is an edited version of a speech I gave to the International Thomas Merton Society at Bellarmine University on March 17, 2026.

I took this photograph of Thomas Merton’s grave at the Abbey of Gethsemane on my visit there.

Finding Thomas Merton on the Campaign Trail.

Tuesdays with Merton works very nicely with a talk called “Finding Merton on the Campaign Trail,” since we have elections on Tuesdays in America.

But we are not going to spend time in the voting booth, unless you want to ask me about that in the question period. Instead, we start our time together tonight in bed, where this story begins.