[c. 1960]. In 1960, photographer Shirley Burden, who had shot the cover photo for Merton's Selected Poems in 1959, published God is My Life, a photographic study of the Abbey of Gethsemani, where Merton lived. Merton provided this preface, which is far more an extrapolation of the lessons he derived from the book than a mere introduction: "Places, like persons, lose the sense of their own identity. They tend to fabricate for themselves a character, and it is with this unconscious substitute for reality that they go out to meet other men...What a lesson is in this simple fact: Our partial, fabricated self: the self that wants to be at the same time angelic and up to date, is pitifully imaginary...." Four pages, with Merton's holograph corrections, beginning with changing the title to "Preface" from his initial, descriptive title, "A Question of Identity." Four other instances of word changes and a few corrections of spacing, punctuation, or typos. The Christogram "jhs" appears on the first page. Three-holed paper; folded in thirds; near fine. By the following year (if not sooner), Merton had himself taken to photographing the Abbey. Manuscript material by Merton is extremely uncommon in the market, and this is an especially rich example as he reflects on the meaning and beauty of the monastery where he had been living for nearly two decades at that point, so long that until he saw Burden's photographs he no longer even saw the Abbey or recognized its beauty. [#030128] SOLD