Most people who know me or think they know me can’t imagine me as a nun. The pieces just don’t fit. Piety and reverence seem to be ever beyond my grasp. The fact that it seems unlikely that I was ever a nun adds to the transformative power that my convent experience had on my life.
Telling the story of those years over 30 years later is not easy. My memory is often hazy, sometimes deliberately so. There are many things I don’t want to remember. Yet, in the re-membering I put together the pieces in hopes that I’ll be able to see from a distance just what those years meant and how despite the pain, they serve me well today.
The emotional imprint of that time is still strong. At times, it may cloud the facts but this is true of any life and the memory of things past. My convent experience while unique to me is not really unique at all. For anyone who has experienced a great loss, a battered spirit or a broken heart and lived through it, this story is also yours.
Chapter One
The Big Mistake
I remember the day I arrived at the convent. Small suitcase in hand, my entire family and my beloved grandmother were there. We all sat nervously in the fanciest convent parlor, the one usually reserved for bishops and dignitaries, waiting for my acceptance into the order from Mother Superior. She wafted in as if on cue and gushed a little too enthusiastically, eagerly shaking my grandmother and my parents hands. I stood wearing a loose fitting peasant dress that I had sewn for the occasion. I remember having a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. My mind was screaming,
“It’s not too late, go home now. This is a big mistake.”
I ignored this inner voice, the one screaming the truth at me. How different things would have been had I listened.
In that opening moment, I knew that I should run the opposite direction, run back into the life I was trying to escape. I was too young to know and to appreciate the wisdom that lies within all of us. I, who did what was expected, chose to ignore this inner voice. For the next 2 years and ten months, not a day ended in which I did not regret this failure to listen to my heart.
To understand why at 21, when I should be eager to experience the world and all it offered, I entered a convent instead, you’ll have to know more about where I came from and how it shaped me.
Born the eldest in a family of six children, I grew up in a very small rural community that was populated by Catholic German-Americans. This little rural town had a population of 325 for years. Main street was a dead end. Everyone knew everyone else in this sleepy little town called Sublimity. Within the city limits there was only one church, the Catholic Church in a parish called St. Boniface. St. Boniface was a German saint whose story sometimes seemed to get mixed up with the pagan god, Thor. It would be years before I learned about Thor. As a kid, I was all Catholic and so was everyone else in my small world.
Both of my parents came from large Catholic families. They grew up living less than 2 miles apart from each other as the crow flies (which means across the fields). They knew each other as children in grade school. They knew each others families and who was related to whom and sometimes the why of that relationship. It was a bit like Walton’s mountain Catholic-style. Yet, compared to Sublimity’s Catholic families, Walton’s mountain was populated by cock-eyed optimists.
My grandparents grew up speaking German as children. Their families were firmly ensconced in German culture. They were pessimists who did not show affection lest it spoil their “kinder”. Things were usually going from bad to worse. Talk about feelings was “verboten.” Despite this dour view of the world, and the lack of displays of affection, they were fiercely loyal to their family. Their family was their world. It was my world as well.
I grew up in the company of cousins and aunts and uncles. We celebrated holidays together with both sides of the family. One side was visited for dinner (lunch) and one side for supper (dinner). Huge family potlucks were common place. Weddings were big occasions. Food and beer flowed freely. Funerals were always followed by a feast as well and lots of reminiscing. Baptisms were followed by a big meal for relatives. Death was as much a part of life as the baptisms were. Food was part of everything. Occasions often began with the celebration of a Catholic sacrament. There was no other way, no other religion, no other way of being a family. This was all I knew.
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