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On March 18, 1958, Trappist monk Thomas Merton was standing at the corner of Fourth and Walnut when he suddenly had an epiphany, a satori, a mystical revelation. As he described it in his classic book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness... This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud... I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."
Walnut Street has since been renamed Muhammad Ali Boulevard, and the four-way intersection he was standing at when he had his revelation is now renamed "Thomas Merton Square," encompassing Meidinger Tower, The Seelbach Hotel, National City Bank, and The Hertz-Starks Building.
Merton, Kentucky's most well-known Trappist monk, was French by birth but traveled all around the world and attended school at Cambridge and Columbia before settling down to a monastic life at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani near Bardstown. Merton was world famous as an author and poet, as well as an international spokesman for social justice issues and interfaith relations.
Many people from around the world come to Kentucky to visit the Bardstown Abbey as a sort of pilgrimage to honor their hero, and hopefully more of these Merton road-trippers will become aware of this very important spot in downtown Louisville where Merton stood and had the trajectory of his life changed forever.
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ADD A COMMENT
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Mixed Mojo
thu nov 19 2009
at 10:31 am
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Yeah they call Walnut St. Muhammad Ali Boulevard now a days and they now also call "waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world" a psychotic break don't they? |
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Rob Beanz #162341
thu nov 19 2009
at 11:33 am
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You can bet that if someone had that experience down there now, they will be automatically persecuted for being out of dress code, considered high on crack, beat down, tazered, then dragged off to L-villes finest free hotel for green bologna sammiches!
And no its not the Gault house!
Otherwise the history of this area is very cool! |
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More Stories in travel & road trips
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J.S. Holland
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I'm a multi-purpose media interloper working around the globe to make our world a weirder place to live in, but choose to call the dark and bloody ground of Jefferson County, Transylvania (some still call it Kentucky) my home base of operations.
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