I recently started re-reading volume six of journals of the well known 20th century monastic Thomas Merton. To me, having read nearly all seven volumes from cover to cover over the years, this one is the most thought-provoking and revealing of Merton’s life, and how he understood the world. At the center of this volume is an illicit relationship Merton had with a student nurse during the spring and summer of 1966. I remember being shocked when I first stumbled on these entries in the journal, but now I find that there is something so shockingly human about it all that my shock has become reserved for why we’re so unwilling to accept and work with the complexities of love, sexuality, and intimacy.
Last year, author and biographer Mark Shaw published a new book entitled Beneath the Mask of Holiness: Thomas Merton and the Forbidden Love Affair that Released Him, which details not only the specific relationship in question, but also about how love, sexuality, and lack of both profoundly affected Merton’s life and his views on religion and spirituality.
During an interview Sh
aw gave last year, he took up some of the issues in the book, especially concerning Merton’s ever evolving, often conflicted relationship with Catholicism and the Church. On this, Shaw offered the following:
Becoming a monk was supposed to cleanse him of these sins, but from his own private journals, I knew this was not true. Instead, Merton’s failure to understand what loving, and being loved were all about caused him frustration, turmoil, and even depression. Beneath the mask of holiness, the plastic saint image promoted by the Catholic Church, was a sunken man who yearned for love while realizing he could never truly be one with God until he found it. Then, as I wrote in the book, the skies opened up and there was a gift, the love of a woman. It is no wonder Merton grabbed the chance to experience love despite the risks involved. And Margie taught him about loving, and being loved, opening up a path to freedom Merton never knew existed.
Instead of reading Shaw’s book, or pouring over interviews with him, I’d suggest going straight to the source first. Anyone who reads the entries in Merton’s journal about his time with Margie will almost immediately feel the profound struggle that was going on. It was as if Merton was caught between his understanding of the spiritual life and the manifestation of in the flesh love that was right before him. Although at times the way he words things sounds almost like a teenager in love, I really believe, like Shaw, that this relationship was much more for Merton.
I have always found the deep split between the spiritual and sexual in nearly all religions, including the Buddhism I practice, very troubling. While it’s possible to argue that Buddhism has less of this than Judeo-Christian traditions, I’m still convinced that there’s a gap in the teachings that has lead to an enormous amount of confusion, condemnation, and suffering. And I don’t think it’s necessary to be a monastic in order to experience these gaps – no one, I think, is really immune.
I have sometimes wondered what it would have been like if Merton had been a Buddhist monk? He still would have been breaking his vow. And yet, how does this vow square with a spiritual tradition built upon the awareness that everything in life is impermanent? In other words, what happens to a person who takes what might be viewed as a permanent vow (at least in this lifetime), and then discovers along the way that upholding that vow is causing more suffering than liberation?
Well, that’s an interesting tangent to consider, but the fact remains that Thomas Merton was dealing with the tenants of Catholicism, and not Buddhism. And he was no novice monk by the time of his relationship with Margie Smith. In fact, he had become a world renowned spiritual writer who was, despite his independent, anti-authoritarian streak, considered to be an important asset by the Church. Walking away from the monastery would have proved to be very difficult, and returning to his vows as they were was impossible.
The last two years of Merton’s life, following the relationship, proved to be his most exploratory in a spiritual sense, and it’s possible to argue that he may have been tossed out of the church at some point if he had lived longer. To suggest that the relationship with Margie had nothing to do with this late life spiritual journey would be a great spiritual denial in my opinion.
There’s something quite mysterious about taking spiritual vows. A few years ago, I took the lay person vows in the Soto Zen tradition during a ceremony called jukai. They are very much about embracing all of life, engaging with everyone and everything compassionately and with reverence. But how this looks day by day, moment by moment, isn’t always clear. And in some ways, I feel like I have little idea how committing myself to such vows has changed my life, and what I might do in it in the future.
I’m convinced that how vows manifest in one’s life changes over time. And when it comes to sexuality and spirituality, how much clarity can most of us claim to have when our spiritual traditions are littered with prohibitions, shame, blame, and non-discussions about the intersection of the two?
Photo Credits
“Beautiful Scene” Daily Gratitude Blog
“Thomas Merton in the fields near the Abbey of Gethsemani” by Sybille Akers
The OT tells of the unhappiness that occurred between the people involved when men went contrary to the teachings of God, and accumulated more than one wife for themselves. Then when Jesus was on earth he re-established the original command of one man and one woman in marriage. When there is no marriage, human dignity is degraded more and more. Eventually evil prevails in a society where the close family unit system is abandoned. Today some monks marry, but at the time of Thomas Merton it was not common. He supposedly asked his Abbott if he could marry the woman but he was denied.
Hi, to separate Merton’s spirituality from his childhood and adolescent emotional trauma would be doing injustice to fully understanding him. Shaw was right in this: his spirituality was profoundly shaped by his difficulty with intimacy and sexuality, and this was a result of youth, losing his mother at age 6, father at age 16, grandfather at 21 and grandmother at 23. Merton loved truths. We need to honor him by exploring the relationship between his challenged intimacy/sexuality with his spiritual journey. I don’t think he solved it and would be most delighted our attempts to understand him in true depths.
Nathan,
This an excellent article.
Why is human love and sexuality so derided in the Church?
Monastic life is often an escape from the responsibilities of life that can often lead to disordered thinking about life and the term “bride of Christ” positively wacky.. Thomas Merton it seems was a good man searching for something, but very lonely, attempting to find spiritual union with the unknown .why was his relationship with a woman a sin? How could it be? It is the sacred in life.. This needs some psychological analysis,plus some common sense!
If the name of this site is ‘Life is a Human’ than the discussion of Merton and his love for Ms Smith is what it is to be that, ‘human’. Vows or not, to deny our sex, sexuality, sexual attraction to ourselves, to each other makes little sense. If there is a God and we profess to love Him/Her/It sex is part of that love. Its “energy” can be used to reach incredible heights of ecstasy that maybe(?) ‘God-like’.
Having been a reader of Merton, on and off for many years I remember a biography that ‘hinted’ at this love of his, and I am now glad to have stumbled across the possible “truth” of it.
I do not feel it is not the ‘end of the world’ concerning Merton and his brilliance. It speaks of struggles we all have with relating to each other and our desire(s), need(s) to ‘love’ one another.
Merton found he ‘loved’ this young woman who was helping him and was kind to him when he was ‘suffering.’
Good for both of them.
I don’t think this is very complicated in Buddhism. Sex and love by themselves are obviously fun–no suffering there. It’s attachment and impermanence that lead to suffering. A vow of celibacy by itself merely attempts to treat the symptom: by not engaging in sex or love, the hope is that people don’t become attached to it. But it doesn’t really help people realize the true sources of suffering.
On the whole, I don’t believe that monks are a good source of spiritual inspiration or guidance; I tend to think of monasteries as places for spiritually troubled people who need a specially structured environment to find their spiritual life.
Very thought provoking article. Something that might be worth considering is the intersection between monastic vows and marriage vows. I’ve always been interested in the fact that Roman Catholicism holds up marriage as a sacred vow and yet does not allow their priests to marry. Somehow the vows taken by priests and the vows taken by those entering a marriage are mutually exclusive in the Roman Catholic tradition and yes, I’m sure this causes all sorts of confusion and frustration. I could never understand how a faith could uphold the sacredness of marriage while at the same time disallowing their own clergy to enter into this sacred state. These vows seem to be fundamentally at odds and your article got me thinking about why that has come to be and why it continues to be so.
Hi Nathan:
As a Christian, I believe that sexuality, like intelligence or creativity, is a precious gift from God, in every form that it takes. A religious vow taken by a monk, obedience promised by a priest to his bishop, religious “tradition” are all human constructs. I am convinced that Merton’s journey, although perhaps more difficult due to his particular environment and circumstances, is one we all face, that is, to cast off the constraints put upon us by church, family, community and be who we really are – who God made us to be.
I enjoyed your thoughtful article and will add Merton’s journals to my (ever-growing) reading list.
Hi Ross,
Having seen your other posts on here, I can imagine you’d really enjoy Merton’s journals. He was quite courageous in many ways, and I find the ability to read his journals and experience the day to day struggles, questions, and joys he had a gift.
Nathan
Thanks Nathan. Though that book is controversial: many believe their love was never embodied in the sexual act.
Peace
On the contrary, the actions/behaviors of Merton during these times of the affairs gave away so much of what could have happened. From the words of his mouth as told to his circle of friends and from his own journals and writings tell so much more than meets the eye. Who knows what documents or testimonies are kept in the archives of the Monastery of Getshemani or Bellarmine University that’s hidden from public view?