For decades[1] I have been captivated by Thomas Merton. He still evokes wonder and admiration in me. Thomas Merton is part of my life, of my identity. He is not only a source of information and inspiration, but he also provokes contradiction and countless questions. Furthermore, Thomas Merton evokes a source of recognition in me (as an artist, former drama teacher) when he writes: “Art allows us to find and lose ourselves.”[2] That harbors and conceals a world of thoughts, feelings, expressions, metaphors, experiences, contradictions, paradoxes, and insights.
Recently, the book Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine, written by two renowned poets and writers, Susan McCaslin and John S. Porter, both from Canada and also involved with the Thomas Merton Society of Canada, crossed my path.[3] Of the books and other publications I have read about Thomas Merton, this book captures my imagination the most.
In this article, I would like to explain why briefly. But I also want to invite the reader to get acquainted with one of the book’s authors, Susan McCaslin. I interviewed Susan. This article features the interview and also a poem by Susan about what Thomas Merton means to her.[4]
Why am I captivated by this book?
I think it is because the two authors describe and consider the life and work of Thomas Merton from different perspectives, with multiple angles and genres, including poems, images, prose, dialogues, imaginary letters, and reflective essays, in a completely open, original, creative, playful, loving, and thorough manner.
This book invites readers, both those already familiar with Merton’s life and work and those who are not yet familiar with Thomas Merton in all his poetic, prophetic, paradoxical, whimsical, vulnerable, and visionary aspects, to superabundantly meet him in this way.
Of the few reviews[5] I have read about this book, I feel most touched in terms of recognition by what Monica Weis SSJ wrote about it in a clear, concise, and simple way.[6]
I quote: “‘Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine’ is a strong, distilled meditation on the life and oeuvre of a remarkable poet-monk whose works of spirit illuminated a turbulent period of 20th-century American history.[7] In a compelling series of essays, the authors navigate the many corners of the ‘uncaged mind’ of this pragmatic mystic – gender equality, the wisdom of the East, capitalism, war and peace, the relationship between solitude and community, the sacred feminine[8] – with great verve and clarity. They point out Merton’s love and sensitivity to nature, which would qualify him as a precursor in the ecological field.[9]
The book is particularly insightful on Merton’s ongoing journey toward the true self, his evolution from flight from the world toward openness and engagement with the social and political problems of his era and what it ultimately means to be fully alive and awake… The authors also explore Merton’s brief love affair with ‘M’ near the end of his life, calling it a breakthrough in his spiritual journey [which] helped him bridge the duality of male/female into an inner wholeness.[10]
In sum, the authors of this thoughtful, readable study show the reader how Merton, by sharing his brokenness, inspires all of us to embrace our wounded selves as we each climb…toward mystery and greater love.
Superabundantly Alive offers a rich encounter with the heart-mind-soul of a modern spiritual master.” Which I wholeheartedly agree with.
[1] It must have been sometime in the afternoon of Wednesday, December 5, 1962, while lying in the St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht, that I received the book Louteringsberg (The Seven Storey Mountain) written by Thomas Merton as a Sinterklaas gift from my cousin Chris Steigenga. He knew of my monastic calling and brought a book that came as a gift from heaven and at the same time from the earth. I was 16 years old then, and now as I am writing this article, in 2026, I am 80.
[2] Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, Tunbridge Wells, England, Burn and Oates, 1955. Quoted here from: Dirk Doms and Willy Eurlings, Thomas Merton. We are all one. Words for every day of the year, Berne Media, 2018.
[3] Susan McCaslin and John S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine, Wood Lake Publishing, 2018.
[4] See note (3). Both the interview questions and the answers as well as the poem have been translated by Marjolein Hafkenscheid.
[5] Source: https://susanmccaslin.weekly.com CREATIVE NON-FICTION
[6] Monica Weis SSJ (The Sisters of St. Joseph; a Roman Catholic religious organization of women) is professor emerita of English at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York. She is a former Vice President of the ITMS (International Thomas Merton Society) and author of three books on Thomas Merton: Thomas Merton’s Gethsemani: Landscapes of Paradise (with Harry L. Hinkle), University Press of Kentucky, 2005; The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton, University Press of Kentucky, 2011; and Thomas Merton and the Celts: A New World Opening Up, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2016.
[7] Monica uses the word distilled. That is difficult to translate. As I read, I get the impression that Monica means to write that Susan and John wrote this meditation (this book) with great dedication. There are various synonyms for the term distilled: pure, well-considered, deeply thought-out, meticulous, conscientious, supremely concentrated, with great dedication.
[8] In this context, I am thinking of the inspiring conference presented by Jos Huls during the Merton Weekend of October 17-19, 2025 in Steyl around the Hagia Sophia, the long prose poem by Thomas Merton, which he published in 1962.
[9] In this context, I am thinking of the significant book by Kick Bras, Onuitsprekelijk paradijs. De groene spiritualiteit van Thomas Merton, Berne Media, 2021. In this book, Kick focuses on the natural mysticism and ecological ethics of Thomas Merton.
[10] In the book, Susan McCaslin and John S. Porter explore, in all its layeredness and in multidimensional ways, the influence and significance of ‘the feminine’ in and on the life and work of Thomas Merton and what all this means for Susan’s and John’s own lives and work, and for others. As for me personally, I felt invited by Susan and John to think further about this, to meditate and to act. From this, the desire to interview Susan flowed organically. Which she was willing to do.
Chris Beuker (born 1946) is a Dutch artist, retired lecturer, and independent writer whose work explores the intersections of culture, belief, history, and social thought. He studied Drama and Theatre at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (1972–1978) and later taught drama and related disciplines for many years at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen. His published works include Etty Hillesum, haar verwevenheid met het communisme (2020), an exploration of Etty Hillesum and her relationship to communist thought and action, and Voor Elkaar Met Elkaar (2022), a study of some of the underlying intellectual, social, political and religious roots of Black Lives Matter in the United States. A lifelong reader of Thomas Merton since the age of sixteen, Beuker shares with Susan McCaslin an enduring interest in Merton’s life and work.