The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

MERTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH:
Livingston, Ray F. (Ray Frederick)

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Descriptive Summary

Record Group: Section A - Correspondence

Dates of materials: 1964-1967

Volume: 12 item(s); 34 pg(s)

Scope and Content

Ray Livingston writes to ask if Merton would review his book, The Traditional Theory of Literature. He also asks: "[W]hat Scriptural, Patristic, and Scholastic sources set forth and explain the doctrine that the harmony of the cosmos depends upon man's spiritual condition?" The file contains poems of his wife, Claire (see "Livingston, Claire" file for correspondence), and of his eleven year old son, Ira Livingston.

Biography

Ray Livingston was chair of the Department of English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Usage Guidelines and Restrictions

Related Information and Links

See also Cold War Letters #80 published in Witness to Freedom, pp. 244-248.

Other Finding Aids

If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
   

Series List

This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.

Container List

SeriesDateTypeTo/FromFirst LinesPubFull TextNotes
 1962/05/02 TLSto MertonFor ten years I have considered writing to you, but I have refrained, if not out of fear that   
 1962/06/no? transcriptfrom MertonOn looking at your letter again I see you are really asking me whether I would like to see your book  [Cold War Letter #80 - copy from bound set of letters]
 1962/12/11 TAL[c]from MertonI have thought about you often since you sent the books, and have meant to write. Your fine letter   
 1962/12/no? HLSto MertonUnder separate cover I shall shortly send a copy of AKC's "Measures of Fire." I wish you good   
 1963/06/10 HLSto MertonIf I can get this letter written it will be a wonder indeed.   
 1964/02/19 (#01)TLSto MertonI have started at least twenty-five letters to you---and even finished some---since last summer when   
 1964/02/19 (#02)otherto MertonThe Living Stone [-] "Let me lie down like a stone, and rise up like a loaf." [-] The earth needs  [8 poems by Claire Livingston - "The Living Stone," "Two Poems in Celebration of the End of the World," "The Sins of the Fathers," "Only the Living," "Willy-Nilly," "For the Night Cometh," "Playboy," and "This First Spring"]
 1964/05/11 TL[c]from MertonObviously ours is the kind of correspondence which demands that a few months pass between letters   
 1967/05/03 (#01)HLSto MertonThough I think of you constantly, I don't write for several reasons but thought, after several false   
 1967/05/03 (#02)other[x]to Merton<u>A Letter to Friends</u> - To E.B. Cohen [-] "Be absolute for life." [-] They say the first man  [Claire Livingston's poems, "A Letter to Friends" and "A Paradox"]
 1967/05/03 (#03)other[x]to MertonOnce upon a time there lived a sweet, kind, white-haired, fat, deaf, gentle old lady.  [3 pieces by Ira Livingston, eleven year old son of Ray and Claire Livingston - "Once upon a time...", "Power", and "Letter from a Vietnamese Man"]
 1967/05/03 (#04)other[x]to MertonISHI THE YANA [-] He was Ishi the Yana, [-] And they didn't know where to put him. [-] He was the  [Livingston send a photocopy of the poem "Ishi the Yana" by C.W. Truesdale from his book, <i>The Loss of Peace</i>]
        

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