True self’ and gay spirituality

[Mr Cheese]

FROM ILLUSIONS TOWARD TRUTH:
THOMAS MERTON’S “TRUE SELF’ AND GAY SPIRITUALITY
REV. PATRICK W. COLLINS, PH. D.
“To respect the personal aspect in man is to respect
his solitude, his right to think for himself, his need
to learn this, his need for love and acceptance by
other persons like himself. Here we are in the realm
of freedom and of friendship, of creativity and of
love. And it is here that religion begins to have a
meaning…”
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (N.
Y: Doubleday, 1989) p 82.
“Being gay is not about sex as such. Fundamentally,
it is about one’s core emotional identity.” Andrew
Sullivan, “Here I Am,” America, May 8, 1993, p 7.
“The homosexual experience may be deemed an Illness, a
disorder, a privilege, or a curse; it may be deemed
worthy of a ‘cure,’ rectified, embraced or endured.
But it exists… It occurs independently of the
forms of its expression; it is bound up in that
mysterious and unstable area where sexual desire and
emotional longing meet; it reaches into the core of
what makes a human being who he or she is.”
Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal, (N. York:
Knopf, 1995) p 17.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968), the great American
spiritual master, has become a wise and extremely
popular mentor for the interior journeys of many
persons at the close of the twentieth century. His
life and his message speak to the intense,
contemporary quest for authenticity and truth in
living. Merton himself was always in search of his
True Self. This always involved honestly acknowleding
the many layers of false self which blocked his path
toward his own unique truth. This Trappist monk
experienced life as a series of unfolding questions
which he sought to answer, not only from the Christian
tradition and interreligious dialogue with Eastern
religious, but also from his growing intmacy with the
mystery of the God Within who is the True Self of
everyone.
Merton’s passion for human growth rather than for
certitude about a fixed human nature dominates his
writing in the last decade of his life. He wrote in
1966: “I am not so sure of myself and do not claim
to have all the answers.” (1) As such, Merton can be
particularly helpful to same-sex oriented persons
whose experiences may have raised more questions than
answers about one’s unique identity. Like him, gay
persons too are in search of their unique, God-created
identities. His appeal to such persons lies in his
life-long search for Truth, often without hard and
fast answers to either guide or limit him.
Merton never explicitly addressed issues of same-sex
orientation, certainly not as these realities are
understood and experienced today – - or even then
perhaps. He himself was “enthusiastically
heterosexual” and struggled throughout his life to
integrate interpersonal intimacy. In a 1967 letter
to his abbot, Dom James Fox, Merton specifically
stated that he had no inclination to same sex
attraction. (Witness to Truth, p. 240)
Merton viewed all human sexuality as a challenge of
growth toward personal wholeness and communion with
others. He learned this by personal experience -
first through fleeing the muddle of humanness to find
“God Alone” in Kentucky’s Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani
in 1941. In retrospect this was perhaps his way of
avoiding sexual issues in his own life. He sought to
put order into his chaotic life after some
depersonalizing sexual experiences during his
university years. Then, in 1966, Merton opened
himself to the world of intimacy through a brief but
intense relationship with a young nurse. This both
softened and warmed his heart. After that he opened
to an even deeper commitment to monastic life out of
the depths of his evolving humanity. (2)
With regard to same-sex love, Merton’s monastic
colleagues have said that his attitude reflected the
general negative and uninformed views of the society
of his day. He spoke of “fairies” and, as novice
master, did what he could to keep active homosexuals
out of the monastery. He was, however, tolerant of
the gay orientation in his students if this did not
become a problem for them and for the community. (3)
Merton’s grasp of gayness, of course, did not have the
benefit of these past years’ of greater exploration,
experience and knowledge.
So why might this celibate, heterosexual monk be a
guide for gay spiritual journeys? I suggest this is
because Thomas Merton developed a deep, compassionate
sensitivity to all persons, particularly the
vulnerable and oppressed minorities. Therefore I
contend that it is fair to ask: Can his writings
about minorities and compassion and general spiritual
growth apply to persons whom he himself did not
understand? If so, what might Thomas Merton write
today about spirituality for same-sex oriented
persons?

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