What's a monk to do?

I think I know the reason why the story of Michael Roach and Christie McNally bugged me so.

There’s enough hypocrisy in this world. We are choking on it. The hypocrisy of religion is even more of a danger because it’s almost always cloaked in piety.

Roach proclaimed himself a monk. He practiced it, lived it, then met a girl and fell in love. That’s fine. It happens. Why not thank your lucky stars, or the big Buddha in heaven and be done with it. You could still practice your Buddhism, be a leader in the movement. Just don’t make certain claims.

But, no, that’s not enough for Roach and McNally. They want to eat their cakes and have them too.

I recognize this is bigotry on my part but I think I know why they both do it:

For McNally, seeing Roach for who he really is means having to cope with the real world, instead of searching for some cult to run to.

For Roach, obviously, it’s fear. McNally would certainly see him for who he really is if he gives up monk-hood and gets a job and an apartment in some suburb somewhere: the same jerk she’s been running away from all her life. Except, in Roach, he’s much older, uglier and creepy, to boot.

Hence, the pretense.

But, by claiming to live by the strictest rules of their order, they get to have fame, publish books, travel the world while claiming to lead modest lives of privation.