I’m on Cape Cod this week to read and write. A house and a
beach and some woods all to myself. It’s heaven. I brought Thomas Merton with
me. I think of him often. He is a writer and a spiritual director that I can
truly take to heart. He was a writer, speaker, teacher, monk and a lover.
Yes, we often skip over that part when we tell his story but
I think it’s central to who Merton is and was. The reason we can be so consoled
by his spiritual advice is because we can know that he deeply knew all of our
human and complicated struggles.
Thomas Merton had a love affair when he was in his 40’s. He
was then already a writer and spiritual celebrity of sorts. He was a cloistered
monk at Gethsemane in Kentucky and he had written his bestselling Seven Story
Mountain and other books. He was married to the Catholic Church.
Then hospitalized for back problems he fell in love with a
nurse. And she with him. They resisted, connected, pulled back, cried,
committed, talked, broke up, tried again and loved each other. The relationship
was consummated in a garden near the hospital and they made love there and in
Merton’s cloister near the Abbey. Some other monks knew and some sort of knew
and others didn’t know at all.
But then the Master of the Abbey got wind of the
relationship and confronted Merton, “How could you?” he said, and he insisted
that Merton make a choice. This amazing man of God didn’t have an easy time. He
saw her again, cried, begged, swore off, went to find her, sent her away and
went to find her again, and then left again only to come back. Finally he chose
the Church and his life of monasticism. But it was not easy. He was a tormented
man even while being one of the world’s most famous monks and a great spiritual
teacher.
Two years later—Merton was allowed to leave the Cloister to travel
to Asia. It was, perhaps, a consolation from his Abbott. In Asia Merton made
one of his greatest speeches and then he died tragically by accidental
electrocution. We know from his journals that even that year he was still
grieving the loss of his great love.
I have always wondered about his lover, the nurse, the other
woman. How did she hear the news? How did she grieve? She lost him and then she
lost him again. Did she know of his despair? And what did it mean to her to
later read his great prayer of faith and doubt?
I think of Merton as a man who loved and suffered and lived
in the grey of faith and morality. Somehow it helps me to know that even Thomas
Merton was never really Thomas Merton.
11 comments:
I love the last sentence. And it breaks my heart the arbitary rules that keep people from love. I feel certain that the God who created love wouldn't have felt dissed if Merton completely embraced his love for the nurse. So sad.
I love your last paragraph. I wish you had elaborated, but it might have lost its 'shock value' (I'm not at all saying that's why you wrote what you did -- I don't at all think that is why you write it), but, still, it does have some shock value.) //// None of us know ourselves very well, unless we've had many years of therapy, and, even then, many years of therapy is no insurance that we will come to know ourselves very well. //// What I've always thought is that Merton -- because he was far from stupid -- began to realize or even knew that Jesus Christ was not The Son of God, not the way Christianity traditionally teaches. And I think it was important to him to sort it out -- I think his inner life was of primary importance to him. //// And I would like to think that (1) he realized how impossible it would be to carry on a long-term relationship with a woman 30+ years younger than himself; and (2) even if he didn't realize that, I think he must have known that it would have been very hard to have supported her (I mean -- what would he have done to make a sufficient living??); and (3) I think he knew he simply couldn't cause the scandal that his leaving would have caused -- I mean, omg, for people without a tremendous amount of depth, intelligence and compassion -- it could very well have destroyed their faith, if not their lives (and that is really (1)). People had come to idealize Merton, and God was in second place. //// I don't think Merton killed himself, but I do think he was distracted at that conference. And I think The Universe 'took him' before he could do any real damage to himself, that girl, and Christianity (I would have said Catholicism, but Merton's followers included a lot of non-Catholics too). //// Merton has been a good friend and companion of mine for the last 50+ years -- since I first read 7 Story when I was 16. As I got into my 30s, 40s, and 50s -- even without his affair -- I began to realize he was far from perfect, and, consequently, I've had a very good and fruitful relationship with him, through his writings. All my adult life. And I know my life would have been much poorer without him. //// I love what you wrote. Thank you so much.
Without being an anti-christ type, which I am not. The Catholic Church has placed millions of dollars, and still is, to prevent anyone from finding, on the web and elsewhere, the whereabouts of Margie Smith. Try it yourself and you will verify this for yourself.
The Cardinals of the Church, the Bank of the Vatican, these people were very crooked.
That being said, I hate to use this prosaic intro, but Thomas Merton will last for ages as a voyager in search for a port of call called TRUTH.
You are such a good writer. Thank you.
Double check Merton's age when he first met the nurse Margie Smith. Other sources say he met her when he had back surgery in 1966. Not 40's but early 50's?
Well, regarding Father Louis's alleged love affair-- it does not show up Merton's life in HERMITS: THE INSIGHTS OF SOLITUDE BY Peter France. Now did France not know of the alleged love? France tells a story of Merton's consistent, persistent plea to live in a hermitage on the monastery grounds. Merton wrote deeply about solitude and his feeling called to solitude--which he did get permission to practice. BUT, you know, human nature is very, very manifold and multiplex. Sooo, who's to say Merton didn't get distracted from his passion for solitude by his instinctual sexual wiring. We all have it, and it can drive us nuts and go haywire (no pun intended, or maybe pun intended).
Fr. Louis (Thomas Merton) was, in the end, all talk. He was not a true spiritual master. In the time of his testing, he failed. He broke his vows to God, was deceitful, and was disobedient to his Abbot. For all his writings, he could not even master himself. Talk is cheap. He was a source of scandal. Selfish and self-centered.
I have had the great blessing of having 3 spiritual directors who were Trappist monks. They have all since passed away. They really helped me, and it was very healing to know people who help you without expecting anything in return. They were true monks to the end. These monks never garnered world fame, never wrote bestsellers, rarely left their monasteries, never had to trumpet their spiritual calling/lives but they remained true to their vows to God to the end, They were very good spiritual directors.
One of them was Fr. Timothy Vandervennet, ocso who was one of Merton’s teachers at Gethsemani. Now he was a true spiritual master, not a fame seeker. He helped hundreds of souls. Fr Timothy never sought fame, and was a very simple and prayerful man. He was obedient to his Abbot at New Clairvaux to the end, even at his deathbed when he in the hospital and struggled to get up because he wanted to die in the monastery. When his Abbot told him to accept the situation, Fr. Timothy calmed down right away, and then went to God peacefully, with his Abbot at his side.
If there was any monk who was a true spiritual master it was him. By his life, he was a good example of what it means to be a true follower of Christ.
Yeah, ît seems she did not really do any authentic research regarding him. But read some gossip columns.
So you have contemplated and studied and successfully pursued truth to the point where you are the ultimate judge of the perfect monastic? Wow. Good for you
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