And Then There Were Nuns
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Life was so ordinary until there were nuns in it. My inbox now pings with their newsy updates, their grumblings about their work load, their insight into something they heard or read or witnessed. That vow of silence vanishes pretty quickly when we visit one another in person. During the summer, I spent an exhilarating week in Paris with Sister Helen Claire—tidy, poised Sister Helen Claire. Who knew I’d be traveling with nuns?
Father Luke is among my new religious friends. When he visited Canada the summer following my time at Quarr Abbey, we spent a few days together, during which he managed to convert me into a fan of Leonard Cohen.
( iii )
MY OTHER new monk-buddy, Thomas Merton, the temperamental Trappist, once wrote, “One has to leave the world to discover it.” Which is another way of saying that we don’t appreciate what we have until it is taken from us.
It takes leaving the familiar to really understand the familiar. We get jaded about life; we get caught up in our routines and prejudices; our minds slovenly default to old but comfortable sentiments and practices. Our alarms go off at the same time each morning, we get up, get dressed, grab a coffee, and go out the door to repeat what we did the day before. Most people will live blissfully without ever knowing what life would be like without their creature comforts and the people who populate their lives.
I would take Merton’s aphorism further and say that one also has to leave the self to discover it. At some point—and it can happen a few times in a lifetime—we are called not only to try something new but to be something new. In my case, that’s what happened. I could not cope with being who I was while the trauma festered inside me. I had to physically remove myself from my life, had to take up the cross (literally in this case) to travel into the heart of my own darkness.
Maybe that’s why Merton liked to deke into the woods, shed his monk’s cassock for denim and leather, and head for the bars. He didn’t want to sink into complacency in the monastery. He wanted—he needed—to take his jagged-edged self into the public arena and connect with other jagged-edged folks.
( iv )
LET’S TALK about rape for a moment, shall we? Because it needs a public airing, and it doesn’t help that when we speak about rape, the conversation is more about shame than outrage. I don’t know how we can move beyond this, I just know that we must.
While writing this memoir, I assiduously avoided mentioning the rape aspect when people asked about my book, because I felt more shame than outrage about my own attack. But I discovered something interesting when I eventually opened up to a few people: Of the six I told, two confided that they, too, had been raped and had not reported it; a third person told me his mother had been raped. That’s 50 percent of my tiny random focus group that had an experience of rape.
In Canada, as in the U.S. and the U.K., about 90 percent of rapes go unreported. Rape statistics defy the economic divide. The so-called “civilized” countries have nothing to be proud of: a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than of learning to read; 5 percent of the female population in the U.S. are raped each year; in 2006, 85,000 women in the U.K. were raped—that’s about 230 cases a day. What’s more, women who report a rape are considered liars until proven otherwise. Unless they’ve been literally raped to death.
Silence is the reason rape is so prevalent. For every woman who has been raped, there are children, parents, and friends whom she is protecting by her silence. Most women know their attackers; I knew mine, and I still know where to find him.
When the rape memory invaded my discernment period, blame and shame were my immediate responses. Gradually, a serenity as subtle as the whisper of God settled over me, and that could only have happened by being among the nuns. I never wanted the experience of rape to turn me into a Trauma Queen; but what I didn’t know then, but know now, is that when you don’t forgive yourself, you keep gnawing—even subconsciously—at your own scar tissue.
( v )
I DIDN’T know how my experience would turn out or where it would take me. It was never going to be the type of journey that comes with a map and reservations (though there were plenty of reservations of another sort). Faith is not for sissies. Then again, the best journeys are the ones that scare you a little and provide the opportunity to examine your direction and reset your compass.
Maybe the call wasn’t to be a nun but to serve the nuns or be among the nuns. Whatever it was, I have found the nuns, and that was probably His point. If I can’t be a full-fledged nun, then I can try to behave like one. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we all tried to be nuns of the world.
You know that moment in a tense round of charades when, after a series of frustrated guesses, someone finally shouts the answer just as the time-clock buzzes and the person acting out the clues collapses with relief into her seat, completely spent from the effort? That’s how I imagine God feels about me at the moment, flopping with exhaustion into His big comfy cloud chair, patting His broad damp brow with a handkerchief, and saying, “Well, she sucked up a small eternity of my time, but at least that’s another one sorted.”
Let’s hope. And pray.
Though the Lord may give you the bread
of adversity and the water of affliction,
yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore,
but your eyes shall see your Teacher.
And when you turn to the right, or you turn to the left,
your ears shall hear a word behind you saying:
“This is the way; walk in it.”
ISAIAH 30:20–21
Acknowledgements
WITHOUT THE GENEROSITY of the nuns and monks (former and current) whom I encountered on my journey and who shared their stories, this book would have been very difficult to write. I cannot express enough my gratitude for their gentle wisdom and love during my prolonged discernment period. They continue to provide me with an abundance of spiritual nourishment.
My thanks extend to the communities of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine (Toronto, Canada), the Order of Solesmes at Quarr Abbey (Isle of Wight, U.K.), the Order of Solesmes at St. Cecilia’s Abbey (Isle of Wight, U.K.), and the Order of the Holy Paraclete (Whitby, U.K.). With one or two exceptions, names have not been changed.
I also wish to acknowledge a few of my fellow discerners in the Women at a Crossroads program at SSJD—Rev. Laurie Omstead, Lorraine Street, and Sonya Dykstra—who reviewed early drafts and urged me to move forward.
My agent, Samantha Haywood of Transatlantic Literary Agency, has been a tireless cheerleader, and Nancy Flight, my superb editor at Greystone Books, has once again blessed me with her extraordinary guidance and skill.
Last but not least, thanks to my children and friends for their support while I walked an uneven path, and especially to Colin for his endless patience, love, and countless cups of tea.
A word about biblical references and terminology: I used the King James Version and the New International Version when quoting from the Bible. Some of the prayers reprinted are from The Book of Common Prayer.
Although the terms “convent” and “monastery” can (with somewhat subtle differences) refer to the homes of both female and male religious communities, I have opted, for consistency and ease of explanation, to use “convent” when referring to the home of female religious and “monastery” when referring to the home of male religious.
There was once a distinction between nuns (those in solemn vows) and sisters (those in simple vows); nowadays the terms are largely interchangeable, as I have used them, though many female religious prefer the term “sister” to “nun.”
JANE CHRISTMAS
2013
Also by Jane Christmas
The Pelee Project: One Woman’s Escape from Urban Madness
What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Mid-Life Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela
Incontinent on the Continent: My Mother, Her Walker, and Our Grand Tour of Italy
Jane Christmas, And Then There Were Nuns