This powerful book was prompted by an invitation Matthew Fox received to speak on the centennial of Thomas Merton s birth. Fox says that much of the trouble he s gotten into such as being expelled from the Dominican Order in 1993, after thirty-four years, by Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) was because of Merton, who prompted Fox to attend the Institut Catholique in Paris to undertake a doctoral program in spirituality.
Fox reimmersed himself in Merton s journals, poetry, and religious writings, finding that Merton s marriage of mysticism and prophecy, contemplation and action closely paralleled that of Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century mystic who inspired Fox s own Creation Spirituality. In "A Way to God," Fox explores Merton s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey."