Abbey of Gethsemani

Building in Kentucky, United States.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
How to Do Nothing — Reader’s Companion	Jenny Odell	setting	Merton enters the Trappist abbey in rural Kentucky, petitions for years to be a hermit on its grounds, and writes the journal that becomes The Seven Storey Mountain there, a book of contemptus mundi.

How to Do Nothing — Jenny Odell (2019)

Source: How to Do Nothing — Reader’s Companion · How to Do Nothing · Readwise highlight

Merton arrived and was accepted at the Abbey of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky in 1941. So much did he desire solitude that he spent years petitioning to become a hermit on the monastery grounds.

• Role: setting
• In the book: Merton enters the Trappist abbey in rural Kentucky, petitions for years to be a hermit on its grounds, and writes the journal that becomes The Seven Storey Mountain there, a book of contemptus mundi.
• Why it matters: It stands for the total retreat that the author contrasts with the Louisville epiphany; the abbey is the place of withdrawal he later partly repudiates.