Centuries after it disappeared from the Middle East, efforts are being made to revive the ancient Aramaic language many believe Jesus spoke. The villages of Beit Jala and Jish found inspiration and assistance in an unlikely place: Sweden. There, Aramaic-speaking communities who descended from the Middle East sought to keep their language alive.

Thomas Merton’s life, especially once he had become a monk, was to a great extent one of dialogue with people who were either distant or dead (many saints and writers of past centuries). Rowan Williams looks closely at two such relationships in Merton’s life—first with the Orthodox theologian, Paul Evdokimov, and then with Karl Barth, the Reformed theologian who, by a surprising providence, died on the same day as Merton. Rowan also takes note of the impact on Merton’s thought of books by Hannah Arendt, Dostoevsky, Vladimir Lossky, Olivier Clément, Bonhoeffer, Boris Pasternak, and St. John of the Cross.