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We live in the things we love and the things we expect. I do hope that the compassionate but somehow incisive message of Thomas Merton, the silent rumour of his poetic voice, can be heard and expanded worldwide during his Centenary Year¹⁵ so that we can get rid of “the overlying layer of duplicity that is not ourselves”¹⁶ and recover our native nakedness, that point of nothingness where we become the Incarnate Word, the dance of the Lord in emptiness.

I would like to conclude this introduction by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr Fernando Beltrán Llavador (University of Salamanca), who enthusiastically encouraged me to start this project, providing great ideas to give shape to this book and revising its final version; my sincerest acknowledgements to Peter Ellis (archaeologist and co–editor of Merton’s centenary volume Universal Vision), Fiona Gardner (Senior Lecturer at Bath Spa University and Committee Member of the TMS of Great Britain and Ireland), Stephen Dunhill (retired teacher and current co–editor of The Merton Journal), and Manuel Poggio Capote (Official Chronicler of Santa Cruz de La Palma and editor of Cartas Diferentes Journal) for their generosity in reading and polishing the manuscript of this book, adapting it to conventional editing guidelines and making its English language sound more felicitous. My warmest thanks to Dr Paul Pearson (Director of the Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University, Kentucky, USA), whose constant support and mediation has favoured the publication of this collection; and to Brother Paul Quenon (Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky, USA) and Dr George Kilcourse (Bellarmine University, Kentucky, USA) for their kind offer to be interviewed and share their thorough knowledge and understanding of Merton’s poetic voice. Finally, I would like to pay homage to my parents, whose sparkling creative streak has always taught me that a person should be independent, original, and should not “run with the herd.”¹⁷ Thank you for their neverending patience and trust in my work.