And Then There Were Nuns

by Jane Christmas

  It made me think what a sensible arrangement this might be for secular marriage: have the partners pledge to love, honor, cherish, and live responsibly for three years, after which they can renew their vows for life if they wish. (St. Francis of Assisi is reputed to have remarked that “if marriage were an order having a Novitiate, not nearly so many would enter it.”)

  After the ceremony, we adjourned to the refectory for cake and wine.

  A few days later, the chapel was decorated for a different celebration: the funeral of one of the sisters. For those in religious life, funerals are not sad occasions but a time to rejoice because the deceased has transcended the earthly realm to rest with God.

  Six tall, thick candles stood sentinel around the coffin, the blazing reflection of their flames shimmering off the walls of the chapel like beating angel wings while clouds of incense billowed from a censer.

  We trooped out to the small cemetery behind the priory, huddled under umbrellas against the cold drizzle, and watched the coffin being lowered into the ground.

  And once again, we adjourned to the refectory for cake and wine.

  ( 5:ix )

  THEY HAD chocolate digestive biscuits by the cake tin–ful. I could not believe my luck.

  Nor could I believe I had reached the stage of life where this was all it took to make me happy. There was a time when I wouldn’t have thanked you for a chocolate digestive biscuit. Now I wasn’t sure I could live without them.

  I fell in step with the priory’s busy but ordered life. My usual frantic and chaotic state had been transmogrified into one of serenity and balance. The stress from that horror show at St. Cecilia’s was well behind me.

  Every morning I got up, washed, and chose an outfit from the five-outfit 2011 Winter Nun Collection.

  The bland wardrobe cut down on getting ready in the mornings. Make-up? That was for shallow sissies. This no-fuss regimen put me in a state of readiness for God. I now understood that conversation I had had with Sister Sue back at SSJD about why nuns couldn’t wear lipstick, bangles, or earrings. It was all about making life less complicated to allow you to focus on God.

  The conversion from consumer to a contemplative was not going to happen overnight, but I could see how it was transforming my personality. The time I saved by not primping was spent on admiring a sunrise or in tending to a chore or having a few extra minutes for a leisurely chat with someone. I began to feel like a better person.

  There was an overwhelming desire—not an obligation or a demand—to attend, to be present in everything put before me. The secular world calls this “living in the moment,” something I had never had time to do when I lived in it. I was too busy multitasking and art-directing the moment in which I could “live in the moment.”

  In the secular world, the hours bled into one another indiscriminately, whereas in the convent, each hour had its purpose. This is where the Benedictine system was brilliant. It gave you space, and if you didn’t follow it, you would find yourself crazy busy. Gone were the days of working through the lunch hour or grabbing a bite at my desk. For the first time in my life, I was taking tea breaks.

  I had never been a clock watcher, but I became one in the convent in order to pace myself and avoid getting involved in anything that might cause me to be late for office. Two hours was the longest block of time devoted to work. At the sound of the bell, I shut the lid of my laptop and headed to chapel. This was such a departure from my normal mode of work that initially I felt like a slacker.

  As the sun drifted down to the horizon I never asked, “Where did the time go?” because I knew exactly where it had gone. The day had not been sucked up with checking or responding to email, answering phone calls, or performing myriad domestic tasks that cause the day to vaporize like bits of ash. I could account for every hour of my existence, and this brought a wonderful clarity and appreciation to life.

  My schedule at St. Hilda’s was arranged like this:

  6:00 a.m. Wake-up, dress, quiet prayer

  7:15 a.m. Lauds

  8:00 a.m. Breakfast/cleanup

  9:00 a.m. Work

  11:00 a.m. Tea

  11:20 a.m. Work

  12:00 p.m. Midday office/Eucharist

  1:00 p.m. Dinner/cleanup/quiet time

  2:30 p.m. Work

  4:30 p.m. Tea

  4:45 p.m. Work

  6:00 p.m. Vespers

  7:00 p.m. Supper/cleanup

  8:00 p.m. Read/free-time

  9:00 p.m. Compline

  9:30 p.m. Bed

  ( 5:x )

  A letter arrived from Colin. We had reverted to old-fashioned pen and paper because access to the Internet wasn’t always reliable in certain parts of the priory. The ping of a computer’s inbox heralding newly arrived email did not come close to the thrill of receiving a hand-written, stamped, and posted letter.

  The letter was left for me on the table in the cloister corridor as I entered the refectory for dinner. I put it in my pocket quickly, and when the meal was over and the dishes were done, I hurried to my cell, shut the door, and tore open the envelope.

  There was a sensual quality to snail mail that I had long forgotten.

  I first scanned the letter to analyze Colin’s penmanship—Was he ill, rushed, or happy when he wrote it?—and then I returned to the top of the letter and read it slowly, as if deciphering a coded message. I digested each word, parsed each emotion expressed, as well as those unexpressed. He was chattier in writing than in person. I scrutinized his choice of words, pondered the subjects he chose to tell me about, and noted those he avoided or neglected. His parents and siblings were all well; work was OK. He described an interesting television program on an area of England that he thought we could explore—together. He said he missed me.

  I examined the envelope for signs of a scribble or a hidden message, perhaps a coffee spill. I checked the way the stamp was affixed because there were clues there, too: perfectly lined up with the corners of the envelope meant he was being precise and careful; if it was somewhat angled, it might indicate that he was hurried or had other things to do.

  When I was done reading and ruminating over the contents of his letter, I pressed my cheek against the paper he had touched and tried to capture some of his scent.

  ( 5:xi )

  “WELL, AREN’T you a great wally,” Sister KT scolded good-naturedly as she elbowed past me to correct my mistake. I always joined the sisters in cleaning the kitchen and refectory after meals. I wanted to be helpful—these women worked so hard—but I also wanted to be around them when they let down their metaphorical wimples.

  I had pretty much sussed out the kitchen routine and figured out everyone’s chosen chore. I had also learned not to horn in on someone else’s chore unless I was prepared to have my head bitten off, so I stuck to the ones where I was needed.

  I had also mastered the setting of tables and I knew where the cutlery and dishes were kept and where the condiments were stored (in the same place as the chocolate digestive biscuits), so I figured I could handle the dishwasher. Sister KT normally loaded the dishwasher, but on this day she hadn’t arrived in the kitchen, so I took the initiative.

  Naturally, I messed up, or rather I did not do it the way she did it. She shook her head good-naturedly and corrected my mistake. And she called me a wally. Like “pinny,” “wally” was an unfamiliar term.

  “What does ‘wally’ mean?” I pestered her. “Where does it originate? Is it a term of endearment, like ‘pal’ or ‘buddy’?”

  She paused in the midst of rearranging the plates in the dishwasher rack. “Um, yeah, that’s it. Endearment,” she said, and then she quickly turned her face away.

  The little scamp. It was only when I called another sister “wally” a few days later and was met with an offended look that I realized it was definitely not a term of endearment.

  “See? That’s what makes you a wally,” chuckled Sister KT when I confronted her about my faux pas. “But look, if it makes you feel better, I�
�ll be nicer. I’ll call you Ms. Wally, OK?”

  “Fine. And I’ll call you Sister Wally,” I said, whipping the tea towel at her in mock offense.

  It was the sort of easygoing camaraderie found in kitchens everywhere when two or more women are gathered in the name of cleaning up.

  As each sister migrated to her station to load the dishwasher, scrub the pots and pans, wrap up the leftover food, restock the stores, scrape off the plates, or whatever, the banter would start up. The interactions were relaxed: invariably someone would say something funny or tease someone, or you could catch up with someone about how their day was going. Soapy water and tea towels bring out the playful side of women.

  But as soon as everything was cleaned up and back in its place, as soon as the pinnies were hung back on their hooks, we all left the kitchen, and once again silence reigned and communication ceased.

  ( 5:xii )

  I SKITTERED along the cloister corridor toward the chapel for lauds. The gauzy morning light of winter slanted through the large windows and made a weak attempt to warm things up. I rubbed my hands together and blew out puffs of breath, like smoke rings, which evaporated into the frigid air. Yes, it was February; yes, England has a northern climate; and yes, as a Canadian, I would be expected to show a bit more hardiness where the weather was concerned—but how can it be this cold inside a building? The day before, a few of the sisters had given me a peek at the extra layers they wore under their habits: some had cut the feet off a pair of long, thick socks and wore them as arm warmers. I made a mental note to drop into a charity shop the next time I was in town and buy a pair of long socks.

  On the way to the chapel, I passed the furnace room and was tempted to nip inside. It was the toastiest place at St. Hilda’s, as I had discovered when Sister Margaret Anne sent me the other day to fetch the brooms to sweep the refectory. The moment I unlatched the large wood door, it was like stepping off an airplane that had just landed on a Caribbean island. I always offered to fetch the brooms after that. At certain times of the day, when the wind’s direction shot blasts of cold air through the cloister corridors, or in the dark evening before compline, I would get the urge to pray in the furnace room. It wasn’t a fear of being caught that deterred me—no one would have minded at all—it was the fear of finding others huddled there in the dark.

  The other place that was warm was—big surprise—the chapel.

  As we stood at our prie-dieux to recite the Hail Mary, the Angelus ringing in accompaniment, cold hands and feet were forgotten. The prayers and vibration of the chants unlocked our hearts and opened them to the divine. Our voices came together and rose and fell, drew back and surged forward like the North Sea tides. During those exquisite moments when our voices gelled, when our vocal pitch and register aligned, a shiver of joy would shoot through me.

  Invariably, so would a pang of hunger. Stomachs never rumble during a loud hymn or a semi-loud prayer but only when there is a pause in the homily or during quiet moments of reflection.

  There was little chance of being sated today. It was Friday, and Fridays were abstention days, which meant that only tea and bread with butter or marmalade were allowed at breakfast.

  The true work of a contemplative nun is praying. I had never appreciated the power and intensity of prayer until I prayed with nuns.

  On the surface, praying seems easy. Knit your eyebrows in concentration, mutter a few words, and then get on with your day. It’s not like that in a convent. Think of the hardest job you could do—mining comes to my mind—and then imagine doing that in silence and in a dress.

  Every day the sisters descended into the Pit of the Soul, picked at the seam of despair, sadness, tragedy, death, sickness, grief, destruction, and poverty, loaded it all onto a cart marked “For God,” and hauled it up from the depths of concern to the surface of mercy, where they cleaned it and polished it. It was heavy, laborious work.

  In my secular life I had learned to inoculate myself with the usual distractions against soul-tearing news stories, but there was no such luxury at the convent. No skimming the newspaper, tallying up the dead and distressed from the headlines, and uttering something banal like “Poor guy” or “Poor gal” before closing the newspaper and getting on with my day. Nuns do not allow themselves such things. Every crime, every death, every lost child, every inhumane action by a government, every potential tragedy is brought before God in prayers and meditations.

  If you were praying for a woman who was badly injured in a car accident, for example, your prayers focused on the physical and emotional pain the woman had experienced until you almost felt it; you considered how the injured woman’s body would respond to treatment, the possible medical setbacks, and the advances that would hopefully restore her to wellness. It was sort of like the Ignatius method of prayer. You prayed for her family, the worries of her children, husband, elderly parents, friends, work colleagues—the entire circle. You prayed for the person who caused the accident and for his or her circle of family and friends, too.

  The sisters’ prayers were real and specific. They interceded on behalf of the unemployed fishermen in Whitby and those up and down the coast, for those in prison, for single mothers who were about to lose a vital community service because of government cutbacks. One prayer that by its sheer honesty always pulled me up short was, “We pray for those who will lose their lives violently today.” And I would reel back and think of the ways people die violently these days. In battle on a desert road, in street gangs, in a robbery, in a traffic accident, from suicide, from a broken heart. The images were too terrible, the possibilities too numerous.

  Prayer requests to the sisters arrived by mail, email, and phone and were posted on the bulletin boards at the entrances to the chapel and the refectory. They covered a range of needs: for a son looking for a job, for a woman awaiting the results of a breast biopsy, for workers facing a factory shutdown, for a religious person who was reconsidering his or her vows.

  Whether in their chapel stalls, their rooms, the corridor, or the garden or whether walking, eating their meals, or sipping tea, the sisters prayed. They did it because prayer works, and the proof came in the form of emails and cards from people reporting that their prayers had been answered: a baby had recovered from an illness or a student had done well on a critical test or an operation had been successful.

  It is hard to imagine what would happen to the world if people stopped praying.

  Here’s the thing about prayer: It doesn’t require fancy words, or a theology degree. It doesn’t even require you to be articulate on any level. Sometimes my own prayers are so scrambled and banal that I wonder whether God thinks English is my second or third language. But therein lies the beauty of it. Vocal articulation is unnecessary. You can sit in silence and sputter out your thoughts telepathically. Still, it doesn’t come easy for everyone. A priest I know admitted that he couldn’t pray; it just didn’t work for him, he got tongue-tied and could not muster the attention for it.

  Jesus had a word or two to say about how to pray, and one of them was to keep it short and simple: God’s not impressed by your MA-level vocabulary. The other thing about prayer is that it is to be done in private. Like Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men... When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen.”

  Being in a place conducive to prayer, where prayer was not just a way of life but was the life, began to change the way I prayed. My prayers became less of a laundry list of thanks and requests, and more of an encounter.

  Praying sometimes left me empty or weak or ravenous. And sometimes it left me speechless and frightened of the world.

  But it was always a profound experience, a privilege even, to pray with the nuns. When we prayed together, I could feel the energy coalescing and being transmitted into the universe like telepathic waves.

  ( 5:xiii
)

  SILENCE WAS a language in the convent. In time I came to recognize its various dialects. Facial expressions—a quiet smile, a cocking motion of the head, lowered eyes, an impassive face—were the easiest to decipher, but there was also communication to be gleaned from a purposeful stride, a slack posture, fidgety hands. It was like possessing a supernatural capacity to pick up birdsong and using it to deduce a change in global environmental patterns.

  The language of silence required intense and focused listening with both the brain and the heart, and the sisters’ tacit connection to one another made them alert to the slightest frisson of anxiety, the deepest source of pain, or the withholding of a secret. They would never say anything aloud or pry into the source of another person’s concern—this might be due more to the British sensibility than to being religious in general—but they would still know intuitively if all was not as well as a stiff-upper-lip sister might let on.

  It was with this sixth sense that I tuned in to Sister Margaret Anne’s frequency. By virtue of the fact that we shared a choir stall, I probably spent more time with her than most of the other sisters. And although we did not talk a lot and rarely communicated with one another outside of chapel, I probably knew her better than any of the others. She had become a tremendous help in steering me through the liturgy, and she kindly assisted me when I lost my place in the prayer books and hymnals.

  Sitting next to one another in chapel, we could gauge each other’s health or mood in seconds. I became hypersensitive to her breathing, singing, enunciation, the way she stressed a syllable or a particular word during the recitation of a prayer. I would experience a jolt of concern when she blew her nose, and would worry about whether she was coming down with a cold or flu. She must have shared the same concern for me, because when my voice dropped out of a hymn or the singing of the “Te Deum,” she would quickly glance over to see if I had lost my place or if I was OK.