The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

MERTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH:
Carriker, Bruce L.

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Descriptive Summary

Record Group: Section A - Correspondence

Dates of materials: 1968

Volume: 5 item(s); 7 pg(s)

Scope and Content

Biography

Bruce L. Carriker writes from Prescott College in Arizona.

Usage Guidelines and Restrictions

Related Information and Links

See one published letter from Merton to Carriker in Witness to Freedom, pp. 241-242.

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
 1968/04/22 TLSto MertonI am the one that wrote you a letter informing you of my background; I stated that I was called to  stating call to contemplative life / Fr. Richard W. Kropf / asking to see Merton / <i>Seeds of Contemplation</i> - "I could have written much of it."
 1968/04/24 TLSto MertonI'm happy here in this home--Prescott College, And the only reason I could see for leaving Would be  [written in loose verse form] asking Merton to teach him at Gethsemani
 1968/04/28 TL[c]from MertonYou have put me in a difficult spot. I must try to say what I am going to say, put it clearly,Yes Merton not novice master and does not handle vocations and is "definitely out of the Guru business" / states he must go through the proper channels to enter Gethsemani or try a monastery out west / asks Carriker to be a "disciple of Christ, not any man" [...] "don't build on a mudpile like me!"
 1968/04/30 TLSto MertonI write to you because I think you may help me. Sometimes inside me beats a desire for a solitude  not a Catholic yet, but wants to be a hermit at Gethsemani / thinks only Merton could judge his character
 1968/05/01 TLSto MertonI write this as a courtesy letter. I expect you were testing me in your letter of April 28, for you  sees Gethsemani as his best option for life as hermit - "afforded you [Merton] the opportunity of maturing from your 1949 ignorance to your 1968 wisdom"
        

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