No Feast For You

Instead of celebrating birthdays, the Sisters celebrated feast days.  Like many children born to a good Catholic family, care was taken to link one's given name with that of a saint.  Carol was derived from Charles so my name sake saint was St. Charles of Borromeo.   For years, almost every day was linked to a saint, until the great "saint shakedown" .  During that time, the saints of possible mythic origin quietly disappeared from the Catholic calendar. 

Saints were a weird lot.  A huge number of them seemed positively, certifiably insane.  In today's world, they'd be spending their time at places with names like Shady Acres and State Hospital.  Their rooms would be padded and they'd spend their days in a drugged haze to quiet the voices and hallucinations.  Unfortunately, the brand of crazy attributed to me did not come close to the Sisters' idea of sainthood.  I would sometimes remind myself that the saints usually had a hell of a time living within their own centuries.  Even though I thought most of them more than a little nuts, I could console myself with the thought that at least I was in good company.

Sometimes the saints were just down right creepy.  I'd found a book on the convent library shelves entitled, The Incorruptibles.  Incorruptibles are saints whose bodies don't decompose in the ordinary manor.  Some of the pictures in this book would have made Wes Craven and Stephen King feel right at home.  Being a saint and winning God's special favor would have been okay.  Creeping people out with my shriveled corpse years after my death, not so much.  A few look pretty good but there are enough others to make horror seem real.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorruptibility

Saints reproduction pictures could also be a form of creepy.  A poor reproduction of Ruben's St. Sebastian picture hung above the landing of the central convent stairs.  This massive picture startled me almost every time I looked at it.  I tried to stop looking at it but given it's size and placement on the landing nearest the dining hall, it wasn't easy.

I think the Sister's St. Sebastian had more clothes on.  Unfortunately, the ecstatic expression on his face was more pronounced.  It was hauntingly sexual.  What disturbed me is that it didn't seem obvious to anyone but me.  Near nudity, arrows, too ecstatic a face, it didn't take a Freudian to figure it out.

So celebrating a feast day was not nearly as much fun as a birthday back when birthday's were still fun.  It was usually disappointing and an occasion to feel homesick.  No presents, no cake, made it a dud as far as celebrations go.  So when Sister Consuela came up to me with a smile and asked me to write down what I'd like for my upcoming feast day, my nerves sprang to attention.  This had to be a trap.  It looked like a trap.  It felt like a trap.  It even smelled like a trap.

I agonized over the list I was to slip under her door.  Requesting a sporty convertible was not good but was requesting a bottle of lotion better?  Finally, I wrote down an American Heritage Dictionary.  Slipping the note under her door, I was filled with dread.  This could not have a happy ending.  There were no signs that my feast day had been derailed during the days leading to it.  It wasn't until the fated day itself that I was summoned to Sister Consuela's office.  Summoning was never good.  Trembling with fear, I promptly obeyed.
Walking into her office she said in a firm and frightening tone, "Close the door."
"God, I must be in major trouble now", I thought.
Once the door was closed and innocent lay passersby in the hall were shielded from her venom, she began to tell me,  "You are such a disappointment.  What were you thinking?"
I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about yet here she stood red-faced and sputtering spittle as she spat out her words with the steady staccato of heavy artillery fire.  I'd just completed a phase that I felt was beyond reproach.  Hearing her tell me what a loser I was felt terrible.  
At some point, her words began to wash over me.  I stopped listening until she ended her spew with the words, "You don't deserve a feast day.  All feast day celebrations for you are canceled."
Even though feast days were already a dud in the celebration department, this was a surprisingly cruel twist.  I wasn't prepared to hear it.  Taken by surprise, the tears I usually could hide, spilled down my cheeks.

This surprised my attacker.  She suddenly seemed to soften as if tears were what she'd wanted all along. Yet she was surprised by them.  I was quietly dismissed with, "You can go now, Carol."  Usually, I was left with a litany of my wrongs.  I didn't agree with the vast majority of the charges but I did have some understanding of what I was up against.  Once charged, I would internally plea my cause in a manner most eloquent and shame the socks off my veiled enemies.  How wonderful the human mind in finding ways to cope.  But this was something new.  I didn't know what I'd supposedly done.  It was kept secret even from me.  I didn't know how to fight this.  

Bar Hopping at Barnacle Bill's

It doesn't take a genius to know that bar hopping is not appropriate behavior for novices or "full-blown" nuns. Sister Cecelia or I had thought of this new form of defiance. We were at the beach with the rest of the Formation group. Sister Cecelia was the current pariah. While I was uncomfortable with the sexual relationship she was having with Sister Christine and concerned about favoritism, I couldn't hate her. I felt sorry for her. Sister Zelda was determined to make her life hell so we shared a common enemy.   No one knew quite how to act around Sister Cecelia and if they could trust her.  I couldn't be mean to her at least not consistently.


In her loneliness and isolation she sometimes sought me out. I listened without judging, at least on the outside. We weren't friends but we did have empathy for the impossible positions that held each of us captive. One night at the beach house, when all the others were asleep, we met downstairs in front of the fireplace to swap war stories. I don't remember which of us suggested sneaking off to Barnacle Bill's tavern on the main street of this little coastal town. I do remember laughing about the idea. Sister Cecilia laughed too but she wanted to do more than laugh. She decided to check out the local bar scene. I stayed behind.  I was never very comfortable with the bar scene in or outside the convent.  I would have held her back as a fellow "stool mate."

Maybe Sister Christine smelled the smoke on her civilian clothes the next day. She was suspicious and questioned the suspect. Under only a little pressure, Sister Cecelia cracked and fessed up. Again, I didn't approve of what she had done. It didn't fit with the lifestyle but I secretly admired her chutzpah. Sister Cecelia had been in the military before entering. I doubt she saw or heard anything in Barnacle Bills that she hadn't heard or seen a thousand times before.

Actually, maybe Barnacle Bill's was a good place for a religious. Imagine someone with deep convictions listening and caring for the people who frequent a bar. It might have been the perfect place to inspire souls or at least to stop someone from driving drunk or in a moment of drunken desire have sex in a bathroom stall.   That is something I would later witness in the real world. Oh, and while working in Alaska, I had a room mate that would finish her late night shift, drag some male home and proceed to "get it on" in the bottom bunk while I tried to sleep a few feet above. I got so used to it that if I woke, I usually went back to sleep. She thought I was an uptight prude. I was sure the word "skank" defined her. Half way through the season, I moved in with a newly made friend who lead a much tamer existence.  Before I did, my first roommate created a story for the employee newspaper about my being a Mennonite who had a near encounter with a grizzly on an overnight backpacking trip into the park.  At first, it made me furious but since it was all fiction, my fury quickly passed.   She never knew that I'd been Sister Mary Carol and there was no way I'd ever tell her.  She would have really turned it up a notch and tried to shock me every chance she could.  I would have tried to play it cool every chance I could just to spite her.  This roomie was always called "Wild Child".  I have no memory of her real name.

There was another reason, I told very few people about my past.  The pain of leaving was still hard to bear.  It wasn't leaving the craziness and all the verbally abusive behavior.  It was a huge relief to close the door on all of that, at least all of that from the Sisters.  What was so difficult for me to recover from was the damage done to my soul and psyche.  For a long time after I left, I couldn't really talk about the things that had happened while I was in the convent without shaking like a leaf.  The trauma had left its mark.  I know first hand what post-traumatic stress disorder feels like.  I don't wish it on any one. 

The hardest thing to relinquish was the death of an ideal.  I'd wanted to live in a better, kinder world only to step in a world that in so many ways was more cruel than any I'd had known.  People who were supposed to be the epitome of good in the world, were paper dolls lacking depth, substance and often a good moral core.  They were corrupted by power, by their own sense of self-importance.  The safe haven, the benevolent mentors I was so eager to find within the convent didn't exist.  While my motives were complicated and  some less than pure or motivated by neurosis, the youthful earnestness with which I sought a better life, a better way to live was genuine.  I was crushed by the disappointment in the real world, in the convent, in some within the Church hierarchy, with the ugliness within some of the Sister's hearts.  They/It became my own horrendous Medusa, a Gorgon that tried to turn my heart to stone.  Maybe the Gorgon was successful for a while.  I tried to pretend I was stone to spare myself some of the trauma and disappointment.

Stone makes too hard a place to rest, to find peace.  I could not stay there.  I had to keep moving, keep living, keep experiencing life.  My plans for my life hadn't worked out.    I was angry.  I was angry at God.  Stronger than anger was my fear.   I was terrified of what lie ahead in the real world after discovering what hell existed within convent walls.    How could my experience be so different from other people who enter religious orders?  What had I done wrong?  What was wrong with me?  These were questions that haunted me.  Leaving felt like failure.  It's why I struggled for so long to make the decision to "save myself" and leave.  The redemption that I sought was not found there. 

When I finally did leave, there were people in my life who believed I'd "turned my back on my vocation." 
I was told that "I can't be friends with you any more.  I don't approve of what you had done."   
I didn't argue.  I didn't tell them what convent life was really like.  I didn't want to rob them of their child-like belief, their innocence.   Their minds were already closed.   Did I have a right to try and open them?  I let them be.  They had a faith in the order of the world that did not want to be disturbed by fact or one person's truth.  They thought I was wrong for leaving.  I would be even more wrong for telling my side of the story so I never bothered.  I didn't need them as friends but the rejection still hurt.  It was yet another cruelty on a mountain of many others.

There is no answer to "why did this happen to me?"  For years, in agony, I'd searched for one.  At last, I can say "It simply was."  Life very rarely has gone as planned for me.  I've often had to live "worse case scenario."  The unexpected has shaken my tree over and over again.  I have fallen to the ground many times.  Each time, I have gotten up, climbed the tree and fallen again.  It has gotten easier, this process of rise and fall.  I fall less now and when I do, I have learned how to land so as to hurt the least.  It still hurts. Yet, as the years have fallen away and time becomes more valuable, spending too much time agonizing over the "whys" of life has proven a waste of time.  Blaming, holding on to bitterness or guilt just gets in my way. 

The second half of my life has brought more challenges to my happiness, my peace of mind, and my security than I would never have dreamed of back in those early years.  If I'd known what I would walk into one day, I wouldn't have found the courage to continue.  Not knowing everything is a wonderful benefit.  If I hadn't faced later challenges, I would have also missed out on the greatest joys in my life.
My story could be one of repeated failures, disappointments, and unsuccessful attempts to become "some one".  At mid-life, I have almost no external signs of success as defined by the modern world.  Instead, my life is a story of  so much more than material success and accomplishment.  Life has carved me.  I have been forever altered by everything that has happened .  The bad things, the things that threatened to crush me, have not.  I have survived.  I have proven resilient.  I have learned that the most important thing in life is to love.  Everything that happens must serve that love.  I've had to rise above myself and my human failings to honor that love.   How often I have failed love, yet love remains all that matters. 

"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him." Romans 8:28. As I looked in an old Bible for the piece of scripture quoted above, a card dropped out.  On the card was a prayer that I had copied while in the convent, during one of the darkest times.  I remember clinging to the hope that the words would some day prove themselves true.  I think they have.

O Lord, do not remember
all the sufferings others have inflicted upon us.
Remember instead the good that has brought thanks to the suffering,
--our comradeship,
--our loyalty,
--our courage,
--our generosity,
--the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.
And when they come to judgment, let all the good
that their injustices have brought forth be their forgiveness."

No source was cited when copied all those years ago. Some day I hope to thank the author.  Maybe we can toss one back at Barnacle Bill's.

Darkness Visible

No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.

from Paradise Lost by John Milton

Depression had rushed in and sunk it's teeth into the softest part of me.  It wouldn't let me go.  I had to keep it a secret.  If word got out the "enemy" would use it against me.  Operation Plan B was formed.  I created a secret mission to find a doctor and get help with the depression.    First, I had to save up the money.  Each Sister was allowed between $20 and $30 dollars a month.  That money was to buy clothing, material to make clothing, personal supplies, like shampoo or toothpaste, and to pay for any trips to a restaurant or the movies.  Even though we had our room and board covered, we were on a pretty tight budget.   

Some of the supplies were available for purchase at the convent itself.  They were held in a small store room.  The shampoo and toothpaste were from the current era but the pantyhose, girdles and giant granny panties were not.  All the sisters in Formation knew we were supposed to pay for anything we took.  We also soon learned where the key was hidden.  Each and every one of us stole what we needed.  Clever enough to use an elaborate and very adaptive ethics, we viewed the surplus in the storeroom as community property.  As members of that community, we believed we had a right to take what we needed and not pay for it twice.  Despite our justification of our actions, we tended to hit the store room in small clusters.  One was always on the lookout for "Sister Trouble" whoever she might be.  There were always a handful of Sister Troubles roaming around.

It took a while to save up for an office visit.  Choosing a doctor located across town to avoid being easily spotted by any stray nuns, I made an appointment.   Covering my reason for needing to check out a car with some plausible excuse, I set off.  The doctor was young, female and very pregnant.  She wasn't Catholic but that didn't matter to me.  In fact, I preferred it.    Rationally, explaining that I was depressed, I attributed my depression to a personal history with the "black dog" and to career and lifestyle struggles.  I was eager to feel better so that I could make more objective decisions about my life and not "knee jerk" reactions.  Antidepressants had worked before and I was confident that they would work again.  She wrote out a prescription and insisted I come back for a follow-up appointment.  I quickly agreed.  No one knew outside of my two close friends.  They hated that it had come to this.  What was happening was crazy making.  I also knew that I had a natural tendency to interpret the world in a less than positive light.  Depression had bitten me before.   Churchill's "black dog" growled through clenched teeth.  It held me in his jaw and wouldn't let go.

Depression in this situation was probably a very sane response for a person in my position.  I'd watched my innocence die.   My trust in religious authority crashed and burned.  I'd entered the convent motivated by a desire for redemption.  In saving others, in sacrificing myself, I wanted to be redeemed.  Most importantly, I wanted to feel that redemption.

Life wasn't simple.  It wasn't the way I wanted it to be.  I wanted neat and tidy answers.  I wanted to know the right answer so I could crawl into it and wear it like a protective armor.  Underneath it all, the world terrified me.  I wanted to feel safe.  Fleeing an unjust and random world, I'd landed in one more unjust and random.  Facing the fact that I had no where to hide presented a great challenge.  To accept being trapped with my fear and anger no matter where I turned, opened the door to depression and I embraced it.  Depression was a filthy,wet dog, that felt familiar and presented an odd comfort.  The kind of comfort that only the familiar can.  Darkness surrounded me.  I clung to it like the rank nasty dog that it was.

During the difficult times, I've often had a mental image in my head.  In my mind, I am falling down a bottomless black well.  I am alone.  There is nothing to grasp.  The fall has no end.  I fall through "regions of sorrow."  Each one is worse than the last.  Past and present had collided.  I lay broken in their intersection.  I'd fought against the criticism, the cruelty, the mind games, the politics.  As hard as I tried not to be effected by it all, I was broken.  The child-like belief that doing the right thing would produce good results was destroyed.  Life didn't always play that way.  Shattered, defenseless, I struggled to carry on.  I was afraid of what life would bring next.  I was afraid to stay and I was terrified to leave.

The Biker Nun Rides Free

Pressure kept increasing.  I lost weight and had trouble sleeping as I waited for the next lesson or ridiculous assignment.  Sister Felicity was determined to prove I wasn't nun material.  I was determined to pass the tests.

I looked for ways to escape.  While exiled to Maryville, I asked my parents for a bicycle for my birthday.  Money was tight and they bought what they could afford, an old rusty English touring bike.  In my eyes it was beautiful.  I threw myself into its renovation.  Carefully removing rust and layers of old paint to discover a beautiful detailed emblem underneath that celebrated the bike's original manufacturer.  My old bike was a diamond in the rough.

My bike restoration project was so much more.  Inside, I knew that I was also a diamond in the rough.  In working on the bike I was working on myself.  With each new layer, I uncovered, I felt more whole, more capable.  Once the bike looked like it hadn't stood out in the rain for several years, I rode it every chance I could get.  For some reason, I didn't take time to change into civilian clothes.  Instead, I'd take off on this bike dressed in my habit complete with veil.

Up and down busy Farmington Road, I would ride.  Why I didn't cause accidents as drivers took their eyes off the road to stare at a modern version of "The Flying Nun", I'll never know.  I made that bicycle fly.  My veil fluttered behind me in the air current I generated as I rolled over the miles alongside busy Beaverton traffic.

My bike rides became the high point of my day.  I was alone and free.  It was the only time I could feel like a whole person.  It was the only time I could feel like me.  Being me, in the convent, seemed to get me in trouble.  I couldn't figure it out.  All through grade and high school, I was the "good girl".  Now in the convent, I'd been cast in the opposite role.  I didn't know how to play it.  The harder I tried to regain my familiar "good girl" role, the worse things got for me.  The authors of this drama were way off base.

The power structure of the order still had a pre-Vatican II frame of mind.  They were old school, demanding authority by virtue of their position.  They often ignored their responsibility to be good leaders.
I came from a post-Vatican II world.  I was part of the Baby Boomer Generation.  We walked in the age of psychology and Aquarius.  We questioned authority as we watched riots and saw blood shed at Kent State.  We saw two Kennedys assassinated before our eyes.  We lost Martin Luther King.  Vietnam's body count entered our homes while we ate dinner.  We heard and saw through the lies of Watergate.  We came from a time of turmoil and learned to question the motives of our leaders.  We watched those leaders rise and fall.  Those that clung to power had failed us.  Those that had tried to lead had been shot down.  We had seen the "man behind the curtain."  We had lost our innocence in a spray of bullets.  Our ideals lay bloodied at our feet.

What was true of my generation is not true today.  Many older people have chosen to forget.  Many younger have chosen not to see.  It will always be easier to abdicate personal responsibility.  It requires very little effort to simply believe what one is told.  It is the easy way.

That has never been part of my nature.  Questioning comes as easily to me as breathing.  It is part of who I am.  I celebrate it.  I knew that so much of what I witnessed and much of what had happened to me was wrong.  Ignoring it didn't make it right.   Not ignoring it made my life harder.  I could have been like Sister Zelda and carried on elaborate surveillance on suspects and lied to cause other people trouble while painting myself an avenging angel.  It just wasn't me.

For me, God will always be better served by an honest, questioning soul than by ignorant sheep who are too easily led by temporal leaders.  I, the poster child for "the good girl" had always been a closet rebel.  Who I was, what I believed posed a threat to the power that was.  It was in Sister Felicity's and Sister Christine's best interest to drive me out and to shame me into silence.  My biggest fault was not believing in myself more and taking so long to save myself.

Sister Christine had made inappropriate sexual advances on several occasions.  I had a right to say, "No."
I also had a responsibility to report it.  The leaders had a responsibility to act on it.  They failed.  They made me the scapegoat for their own failures.  I knew that then. 

When I rode my bike, fast, furious and free, I was beginning to understand that I would have to move forward into my future.  Those rides alongside busy traffic were showing me the world beyond convent grounds, a world that was raw and real.  It invited me into its' imperfection assuring me that I was worth saving.  There was a place for me.  It was not within convent walls.

The Past

                               The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
                               Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit
                               Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
                               Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

                                                                      Omar Khayyam
                                                                      "The Rubiayat"

In telling the tale, I may have been less than respectful of my youthful self.  After all these years, it is still challenging not to view my younger self critically.  Putting up with obviously inappropriate behavior as long as I did can embarrass me still.  Today, as serendipity would have it, I came across these lines from "The Rubiayat."  To state it simply, the past is past.  It does evoke a desire to nurture a younger and more vulnerable me.

Just the other day, I went to the dentist.  The hygienist who worked on my teeth was a very petite and delicate woman.  She also exuded a frailty that left me feeling very protective and maternal toward her.  I spoke more quietly, more carefully, more thoughtfully so as not to damage this frail and beautiful bird of a woman.

As I lay with mouth wide open and my toes higher than my head, I had time to think about why I had this protective reaction toward an adult.  Maybe, I was being perceptive and picking up on her vulnerability.  It was also something more.  I was feeling frail and vulnerable that day.  Meeting her tapped into this vulnerability.  I felt protective of her because I felt protective of myself.

While ever cognizant of my limited intellect and perception, I am also very aware that I can credit my survival in the convent to my intelligence and perception.  Those were very crazy making years.  Of that I'm very sure.  A young, idealistic, naive me did what she had to do.  Thank God, I was clever enough to find ways to cope.  Those ways may not have always been very effective or mature but given the situation, I did the best I could.   I wish the same could be said for those in charge.  Their authority gave them a greater responsibility to care for those who had to answer to them.  They failed me miserably.  I can still feel angry about the injustice of it all.

I'd like to think it is possible to feel that anger, to protect a younger self, while trying to understand the whats and whys that would motivate others to act in ways that defy goodness.    I'll never know what was in their heads or hearts.  I only remember what was in mine through the hazy lens of time.  Still, I am the hero of my story.  The past serves me best when it conforms to this heroic telling.  Yet, even this heroic telling is just one story in a sea of many.  Objectivity and truth lie somewhere at the bottom of this sea.

This is not to say that I can not carry a part of the truth.  I can apply reason to discern what this story can give me today in the here and now.  If I can resurrect feelings of empathy for this young woman, this abused me while letting go of bitterness, I can free myself to act more wisely and with greater care for my present self.  Lately, I must admit being a bit hard on myself both in the present and in the past.  The vicissitudes of life were tossing me around while adrift on a stormy sea.  Weariness crawled inside me and took up residence in my soul.  Pieces of the past were wounding me anew.  I colluded with the wounding by being less than kind toward myself until a tiny stranger and an old friend, reminded me to take care.

Saints and Sinners

Sleep did not come easily last night.  I lay awake and struggled with what I should write about next.  Remembering my experiences has made old wounds painful.  I'm sure that my recent attack of shingles and its lingering impact on my physical equilibrium are based on a deeper psychic wound.  How do I purge myself of this sickness that lies dormant in my soul?  Why does this still affect me so?

My experiences in the convent has been the most difficult thing I've ever gone through because I had so much invested in becoming a nun.  Despite whatever psychological reasons predisposed me to choose to enter a convent and despite whatever I was running from in life, I entered with a very idealistic motive.  I wanted to contribute something to the world.  I wanted to touch other people's lives in a positive way.  I knew what it was like to be an underdog, to not fit in.  I easily empathized with other people's pain.  It was that pain, I wanted to ease.  I wanted them to know and to feel that they weren't alone.  God would always be on their side.  They were deeply loved.

While my emotional health was rapidly crumbling under the strain and the mind games that were implemented to "break me down" I never believed that God had given up on me.  I did, however, begin to give up on myself.

Remember, I wasn't the most stable or happiest of young ladies.  I carried an exagerated sense of guilt and shame.  This is precisely what made me a good target and a good victim.  Sister Felicity and Sister Christine has smelled my "blood in the water".  They knew exactly where and how to strike to to do the most harm.

Am I perhaps slightly paranoid?  That is a question I asked myself then and now.  It's very difficult to believe that women professing to follow Christ in living a good and holy life would be guilty of some of the things I have mentioned here.  Even if stripped from the emotional lens through which I view the past, the facts speak loudly for themselves.  How I wish what I am writing about was not true.

Last night as I lay awake trying to decide what to pull out of my memory next, I realized that there are many things that were said to me that remain forever obscured by time and by the trauma of those words.  The "Grand Inquisitions" of which I spoke are hopelessly clouded.  I can only remember sitting in front of them while, three woman took turns telling me how awful I was.  I have no solid memory of what was said.  I only vaguely remember how horrible it felt.

Last night, long after midnight, I pondered why a woman, who was head of an entire order of over 180 women, would take time out to collect several other Sisters and drive across town on an evening to tell one little novice how worthless she was and not once but on at least 3 different occasions.  What good did she possibly believe she was serving?  If I'd been an employee or a student and had witnesses or better yet a tape of the event, I could have taken them all to court and won a lovely settlement.   I was some one even more important and less powerful.  I was a simple young woman who genuinely wanted to follow a religious life.  They should have been fostering my good qualities.  If I really wasn't nun material, time would have revealed that to me.  I saw a lot of women who weren't nun material that had been nuns for years.  It didn't make sense. 

My motives should have produced a nurturing and encouraging environment.  Instead I received the polar opposite.  "Why" haunted me for many years.  Over time, I realized that I will never understand all the "whys" of it.  I've worked hard to let it go.  Reliving it now isn't easy as witnessed by last night's bout of insomnia.

I did take my impossible situation to God.  That God whether real or imagined helped sustain me.  I chose to continue to believe in God probably just to spite the meaner nuns.  I will always hold open the notion that God may have been a figment of my imagination.  Knowing the twists and turns of the human mind, it seemed a real possibility.  I prefer living in a universe with a God and my personal feelings seems to connect with a power beyond myself.  But as far as proving God is real or gives a rip about humanity, I can not.  I couldn't then and despite the fact that I was living and dressing like a nun, I never felt it was right or ethical to impose my belief system on any one else.  Saving the infidel wasn't my thing.  Getting to know the infidel, being friends,  I'm all about that.

Maybe I clung to this belief in a benevolent God in order to feel superior to the craziness I saw all around me.  Living with the Sisters was a much worse environment than growing up in a non-demonstrative home with siblings who seemed forever locked in combat of one kind or another while our parents hovered in the distance.  I prayed to God that "He would use this hell to make me a saint".
I realized that to spare myself false arrogance I also had to add,  "Oh, and don't let me know I am a saint if I ever become one."
Saints who knew they were saints must not be saints at all.
Crazy, probably, but given the circumstances, it became my only solid lifeline in a vast ocean of crazy.

I knew I was a sinner.  Thinking that sainthood might be within reach while I walked this difficult path seemed my only hope.  I'll never know if and when God might answer that prayer.

Not Smart Enough

As second year novices, we began attending Portland State.  I was taking general college survey courses to add to about a years worth of college work that I had done prior to entering.  It came time to discuss which area we wanted to study and prepare for a teaching certificate.  I wanted an endorsement in English and to teach high school.  This did not serve the Sisters needs.  I also wanted to minor in Theology.  I could see that a lot of the Sisters really didn't have a very good basis in this area.  We were religious after all.

The Sister who coordinated the education for all the Sisters met with each of us.  My meeting didn't go anything like I expected.  When I expressed my interest in English and theology, I was immediately shot down.  She laughed at me and said, "What makes you think you're smart enough for either of those subjects?

I was stunned into silence.  I was living at the convent, keeping its crazy schedule and also going to school.  I was bringing home straight A's and my GPA, that first year was 4.0.  If I hadn't proven already that I was "smart enough" I didn't know how.  After scoffing at my misguided ambitions, I was told that theology was a useless degree and that I would be teaching grade school.  Inside,  I felt like I'd been sentenced to Siberia.  My closest friend in the convent was on track to teach high school history.  We'd talked about how fun it would be to team teach and use our subjects as companions to learning.  We wanted to open up new worlds to our students and both of us felt very passionately about our subjects of interest.  I hadn't expected they'd want me to teach elementary school. 

Summing up the courage to protest, I made a plea to study English and unknowingly opened the door to the first of the punishments for reporting on Sister Christine.  After consulting with the Grand Poobah, Sister Felicity, it was decided that I would be sent to Our Lady of Good Counsel.  It was a convent that housed the Sisters who staffed Christ the King grade school and La Salle High School.  I was going to be observing English teachers so I could see what was required and to prove to me that I couldn't do it.

At first, I viewed this "assignment" as a mixed blessing.  I would be away from the craziness in Formation but I'd also be away from any friends.  I would be isolated.  I'm sure that this was the intent of the powers that be.  I also knew that I could easily become an English teacher and that I was definitely smart enough.  Part of me was anxious to prove it.

Our Lady of Good Counsel was staffed by a handful of final professed Sisters.  The head of the house was a distant and extremely difficult to read woman who never made eye contact.  It's very likely that she had what we now know as Aspergers.  Also, in the house was a very temperamental Sister who can only be described with the words "Super Bitchy".  She was a holy terror and I tried to avoid her at all costs.  You could never please her and never knew when she'd lay into you and "rip you the proverbial new one".

The remaining three Sisters were composed of one adorable and gentle first-grade teacher who was very kind, a kindly older Sister who had some grasp of the "lay of the land" and a Sister who taught at the high school but was rarely there.  It was pretty obvious why she made herself scarce.  The role of Cinderella seemed to be cast for me the day I moved in.  The older Sister was my fairy godmother and tried to protect me from the wicked step-sisters when she could.  The kindly first-grade teacher was an older Cinderella who commiserated at length about the evil deeds of the step-sisters.  This commiseration was actually hard to bear.  Knowing that a fully professed Sister was still victimized daily was a frightening reality.  Was I looking at my future?

As for my school assignment,  it was soon obvious that I was basically useless.  The students soon sensed that I was being punished and we quickly bonded.  A few of the younger teachers became friends.  I got along well with most everyone and was soon well liked.  The Sister who was teaching there acted jealous.  I began to help some of the students with their work when possible just so that I'd have something to do.  Being away from the mother house, I thought I might escape the attention of the powers that ran my world.  This was not the case.  They hadn't forgotten about me and soon decided it was time to really rock my tiny boat. 

Memory fails me as to the reason for what I would call "The Grand Inquisitions."  Not long after I was settled in to a daily routine and finding kindred spirits among the faculty at La Salle, I was summoned to a visiting room at Our Lady of Good Counsel.  There sat Sister Felicity, Sister Christine, and another Sister associated with Formation.  I was placed in a chair a few feet in front of them and the three of them began telling me how awful I was.  I left in tears hoping that this would never happen again.  But it did, only then with some advanced warning, I tried to assemble an advocate on my team.  Unfortunately, my advocates never knew how to respond to the situation.  It was probably too surreal to them.   God knows it was surreal to me.

After a few months of this, I was a nervous wreck.  I suspected trouble everywhere.  I felt completely powerless and trapped in some bizarre nightmare.  I wanted it to stop but this nightmare just  seemed to keep on going.  I came down for breakfast one morning, not yet awake.  I don't wake up in a bad mood but I'm not very chatty first thing in the morning.  The resident "bitchy" nun shouted at me,
"Don't you have anything to say to me this morning?"
Inside I searched my brain for the answer.  I couldn't remember any obligation to report to her.
She let out a huge sigh of disgust and said,
"You're supposed to greet me.  Don't you know how to say, Good Morning, Sister."
I mumbled a meek, "Good Morning, Sister,"
and quickly sat down.  I had completely lost my appetite and wanted to excuse myself so I could slink away and cry but I knew that would not be met with approval so I choked down some cereal that tasted like sawdust.
Later, the kind Sister apologized for the mean one's remark.  The kind Sister rarely stood up to the mean one.  We were doing our best to try to live with our wicked step-sisters.

At this time, it may be said, that I was not smart enough to leave.  I certainly wasn't smart enough to tell them where they could shove their good morning.  I was not yet ready to really understand that I was looking at my future.   It would take time before I was able to find the courage to leave this nightmare and no longer be complaint.

Crescent Moons of Shame

As long as Sister Zelda's main enemy was Sister Emily Marie, my life was a bit easier.  As I anxiously waited for the fall out of my reporting Sister Christine, I watched more drama unfold between Zelda and Emily Marie.

In the Formation wing of the building, there was a large rec room at the end of a long hallway.  There were a set of swinging doors that opened into the room at the end of this hall way.  One day, I was in the rec room when I heard the thunder of running footsteps.  Sister Emily Marie, hit the doors, slid slightly and did an amazing U-turn and ran the opposite direction.  Sister Emily Marie's expression told me that she was running for her life.  In hot pursuit, the larger and much less agile, Sister Zelda came thundering after.  Sister Zelda's  legs pumped madly as she tried to maintain her balance and execute a turn.  Her black nun shoes made a huge black skid mark on the floor.  She came flying through those swinging doors and landed on her side.

She wasn't down long but up and running after Sister Emily Marie.   Fortunately, Sister Emily Marie was able to elude her pursurer.  I sat stunned into silence for a while.  Then decided I just had to find someone so I could tell them what had just happened.  As I headed out the doors, I met Sister Felicity.  Felicity spied the huge skid mark on the otherwise perfectly waxed and shined floor and demanded to know what had happened.  Never one to rat out a colleague, even a rather frightening and sometimes despicable one, said,  "I don't know, Sister."

I felt sorry for Sister Emily Marie.  Later when I should have felt sorry for myself, I felt shame instead.  Sister Zelda seemed to require an enemy among the ranks.  It was soon my turn to fill that role for her.

I have no memory of what we were arguing about that day in the rec room.  We were alone.  No witnesses anywhere.  Zelda was hopping mad at something I said.  She raised her arm to strike me.  I was tiny then.  Sister Zelda outweighed me by close to 100 lbs. but I had grown up with lots of siblings who had often engaged in hand-to-hand combat.  My reflexes were lightening quick.  Before she could hit me, I had firmly grabbed both wrists.  With tears in my eyes, I begged her to think about what she was doing.  In my fervor and iron-like grip, my fingernails happened to pierce the soft skin on the inside of her wrists.  I had emerged unscathed.  Zelda had signs of physical attack.

Zelda didn't have live by the same code of honor as I.  She was quick to rat me out and make me look like the aggressor.  After all, it was a bit hard to believe that I could have held off my Amazonian-built classmate. A little adrenaline can do wonders.  She got sympathy for her cuts and I received another nail in my coffin.  The powers that be were now convinced I was unstable.  In fact, I heard one of the Sisters say that
"Insanity runs in her family.   Old Sister Mechtilde was her great aunt.  Remember that Mechtilde spent the rest of her life in the state hospital."

Had I had my wits about me, I would have bailed at this moment and said, "The hell with all of you."
I didn't.  I felt terrible that I had hurt Sister Zelda, even though it was a clear case of self-defense.  After all didn't Zelda bear my "crescent moons of shame" on her arms?  Unfortunately, getting someone to believe me didn't seem possible and I began to question myself and of course my sanity.  I had to be at least slightly crazy to stay.  By then I had invested a significant amount of time not to mention, blood, sweat and tears.  Part of me knew that I wasn't what they were making me out to be, in fact, at times, I knew that I was probably the sanest one there.  Unfortunately, when you're trapped within a crazy system and things happen that defy logic and reason, it's hard not to fall prey to the "group think"   Ah, the Stockholm Syndrome again.
"Patty Hearst you did what you had to do in my book.  I get it!  Rock on, Patty, rock on!"

Obedience

Obedience is one of the three vows, that I took as a Junior Professed. 

(Junior Professed was another "grade" or stage in the succession to Final Vows. It took about 8 years to reach that final step. Up until then vows were temporary and for a specific time.  All the women who had not yet made final vows were considered part of Formation.)

The code of Canon Law defines obedience as:

"The evangelical counsel of obedience, undertaken in a spirit of faith and love in the following of Christ who was obedient even unto death requires a submission of the will to legitimate superiors, who stand in the place of God when they command according to the proper constitutions."


I apparently stunk at keeping it.  I can see now that I really did.  That's very ironic given how obedient and compliant I was all through school.  I can count on 2 fingers the amount of times, I was actually "reprimanded" in grade school by one of the Sisters.  Even then, they knew my record and my behavior and their reprimand was surprisingly mild.  They could really haul out the big guns on the normal trouble makers.  All they had to do was say my name and give a cross look and I was obedient putty.  Pleasing them meant everything.  That desire to please didn't end when I entered the convent but my ability to do so was so damaged, that I began to lose my sense of self.  As a school girl, I'd always known how to please the Sisters.  As a young religious, I could never seem to get it right.  Who was I and what had happened to the girl I was?

Once the epitome of obedience, now I was labeled a rebel and an insolence and arrogant one at that.  I'm sure there were moments when those attributes did describe how I felt.  After all, my Formation Director/Boss had gotten away with fondling me and making me the bad guy.  I often felt a righteous rage.  I also felt a profound sorrow.  The lofty ideals that had once filled my head and beckoned to my heart were crashing down to earth and bursting into flames.  While in the convent, I witnessed my innocence die.  There are moments, even now, when I wonder if the aftereffects would still be as profound, if there had been an actual physical violation.  My mind was raped on a daily basis.  As dramatic as that sounds, it feels so true as to be very disturbing.

There is still anger in me over many of the things that happened there.  I doubt that any of the perpetrators were acting freely.  They were victims of the system and the process.  They were damaged and often dangerous because of that damage.  They saw nothing wrong in teaching lessons and reprimanding us harshly.  Personal attacks on our character, our intellect, our looks, our singing were a daily occurrence. 
I was often told,  "This is for your own good."
I wasn't able to see it.  It looked pretty bad to me.

"Moved by the Holy Spirit, they subject themselves in faith to those who hold God's place, their superiors. Through them they are led to serve all their brothers in Christ, just as Christ ministered to his brothers in submission to the Father and laid down his life for the redemption of many. They are thus bound more closely to the Church's service and they endeavor to attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Decree on Renewal of Religious Life, 14).

Sounds like a great ideal, but what happens when corruption sets in?  What should a moral individual do, when he is commanded to act in an immoral manner or to ignore an immoral situation?  Would my keeping silent have been the right thing to do?  I will never be able to answer, "yes".   
Maybe I've always been a closet rebel at heart.

Actually, in the end, I could thank the Sisters for teaching me something about the vows in the strangest and most backward way.  I could not accept that I was arrogant and disobedient. If there were any external signs of that it was to conceal my lack of self-esteem and confidence.   Digging deeper and doing some secret reading on my own,  (Remember we had to get every book we read okayed.) I developed my own understanding of obedience.  Years later, when it came time to write our marriage vows for our wedding,  (My first wedding was a civil ceremony in our backyard.  The second was a quiet blessing by the Church.  Both times, the same groom.) I decided to include obedience in the vows I wrote for our backyard hippie wedding.  Not because I'm not a capable and independent woman but because the root of the word has power and meaning to me.  I know that it sounded old fashioned.  Part of me probably included it as a sign of protest for all those years when those defining obedience seemed to be missing the point entirely.

 β. The old Lat. form was oboedire.—Lat. ob-, prefix (of little force); and audire, to hear, listen to. 

To listen to my spouse, to listen to my life and the people in it and to try and hear God in those human communications seemed the best way to understand obedience.  At least it was and is the best way for me.

Real life in the real world has taught me more about obedience than I ever learned in the artificial enviroment of the convent.  Life has a way of handing us all sorts of things that are beyond our control.  We don't need to create artificial circumstances for obedience.  Life does that for us.  Those things that happen to us that are outside of our control provide us with a wonderful opportunity.  How is this experience serving me, a greater good, God, Allah, Vishnu?  If something is beyond our control, the best way to deal with it is to accept it.  It's easy to curse fate, become bitter, blame other people, even blame God.   Over the years, I have done all of these things.   It's much more difficult to learn to surrender and accept what life and ultimately what God has dished out for us.  The challenge is to find God within the experience and to emerge from it a better and stronger person. 

"Watering sticks" was a collosal waste of time and human potential.  It missed the point.  To demand obedience from others, a person must be worthy of it.  It must serve a greater good.  It must help the obedient become a better person.  Watering sticks in a blind obedience is foolish.  It does nothing to glorify God and everything to protect the hierachy and their positions of power.  It completely misses the point.
For me obedience means "to listen."  God knows I need all the practice I can get in this department.  He seems to be serving up lessons every day.  Lately, I end my day with the same prayer, 
"I surrender.  This is out of my hands.  I can't let this ruin me. Help me find a way to see the good in this situation. Help me accept what is."
Since God is "up all night anyway"  I figure it's His job to worry about it.  I'm kept very busy working on the surrender and maintaining a helpful attitude.  This is what obedience means to me.

The Rosary Wars and The Stockholm Syndrome

After reporting Sister Christine's indescretions, Sister Felicity had gone to Sister Christine and had reported my insolence.  Slowly, they began to make my life hell.  It took them a little while to cook up the perfect punishment.  In the meantime, life continued as normal. . . which means anything but normal.  We were all living in a cracker factory.  That can really warp one's sense of reality.  Those of us trapped in Formation, knowing that things weren't right began acting out.

The Rosary Wars symbolize everything that was wrong with Formation.  When you treat young women like children, they'll act like children.  Even at the time, there was a small part of me that knew that what we were doing was ridiculous.  That did not stop the Rosary Wars.

One of the Formation's tasks on our lengthy horariums, was to gather together after lunch in the chapel and recite the Rosary together.  Reciting this rosary made the tensions within Formation palpable.  Sides and alliances were formed faster than on an episode of Survivor.

(Rosary:  The Rosary is a traditional Catholic devotional prayer.  Specific prayers are said corresponding to specific beads on a Rosary.  It is considered a devotion to the Blessed Mother but focuses mainly on keep events in the life of Christ. There are differing views as to its exact origin, often attributed to St. Dominic. Prayer beads are a very old form of devotion in other religious traditions as well.    Saints and popes have emphasized the meditative aspects of the rosary and encourage its use in a respectful and reverent manner.)

Memory fails me as to which camp each of us fell into.  The camps matter little.   The fact that we were so polarized within convent walls is still rather surprising to me, considering why each of us had entered in the first place.   One camp was lead by Sister Emily Marie who was the focus of Sister Christine's affections.  The other camp quickly formed in opposition.  One wanted to say the Rosary quickly and get out of the chapel and on to other things.  The opposing camp wanted to say the Rosary slowly and with devotion.  Well, in this case it would have been mock devotion.   Everyone was too mad at the other side to be capable of devotion or even prayer.  We were engaged in a war with words, the words of the Rosary.

One person or group lead the prayer and the remaining people respond by concluding the prayer.  One group would start out fast or slow depending on the camp with which they were aligned.  The opposing camp would finish the prayer in the opposite way.  The changes in speed were enough to make a listener or participant motion sick.  We lurched through the Rosary like crazy nuns and I think we probably all were.


We had no power.  That point was driven home daily.  Our world was upside down.  Schedules and rules were of primary importance.  What those schedules and rules sought to protect seemed to lie forgotten.  I'd like to think that at this point, I began to suffer from the "Stockholm Syndrome."  After Patty Hearst was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, she seemed to adapt to the situation by taking on the cause of her captors.

Here's how Wikipedia defines this Stockholm Syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness

Now, we weren't under threat of our physical life.  No guns were pointed at our heads but I firmed believe that we were engaged in a fight to save our souls and psyches from further damage.  Building up a young Sister's self-esteem with positive praise and encouragement was unheard of.  We were constantly reminded of our failures, our weaknesses in a concerted effort by the hierarchy to break us down and then rebuild us as good little nuns.    In the meantime, I think that all of us walked those halls with damaged and badly battered psyches.  This wasn't a job to us, this was our life.  To be doing a poor job of living it was emotionally devastating.

Sanity would occasionally insert itself but for the most part we were all compliant in maintaining a high level of crazy.  We went along with the program even when we knew in our hearts that the program was wrong or deviating from its original intent.  When I entered, I was probably more damaged than some of my colleagues who seemed to have developed varying degrees of denial, etc. to adjust to life within the convent.  Depression began to blossom within me as I struggled to become what I believed I'd been called to be while still knowing that sometimes, well most of the time, we were completely at the mercy of a system gone mad.  I desperately, struggled to find something, or some one to hold on to, something that would anchor me in the insane maelstrom of swirling whack.

Quiet prayer time in the chapel was a comfort.  God was still the sanest one in the building.  Time spent alone with this God was reassuring.  Even then, I knew that I might be kidding myself as to what or who this God was and what he was communicating to me, but if it was an illusion, it was a good one to hang on to.

I also had a couple of good friends among the young Sisters.  We would often secretly meet and share horror stories.  We would often laugh and make jokes at the sake of our captors.  It was a survival mechanism but not a bad one under the circumstances.  That friendship became a lifeline and kept me alive.  In time, that friendship also because too enmeshed, too unhealthy.  No, it never got sexual as did some of these close friendships within the convent but I think we all knew that we were losing our perspective at some point.  Our balance in life was off.  We stumbled around in a dizzy hazy trying to find something to believe, trying to find ourselves.

Love, Sex and the Single Sister

Sex was not something that was discussed in the convent.  Not discussing it didn't make it disappear.  Religious women take solemn vows promising chastity, obedience and poverty.  Chastity meant abstaining from sexual acts.  Nuns are still human beings with the same biological drives as the rest of the species.  Of course, the intensity and direction of this drive varies as it does with the rest of humankind.

Had sex been a topic of discussion, it may have helped.  Once we sat in a class with some of the older Sisters.  It was a general class taught by an unusual little priest who began life as a Buddhist.  This class ended up being very informative not because of the topic but because of the older sisters.

During this class, I discovered that one of my former grade school teachers, who'd always barked orders at her charges with a frightening authority, didn't know that Kings was a book in the Old Testament.  (She was the teacher who dwelt on Moses for so long. Guess Moses obscured the rest of the Old Testament in her mind.)  Imagine my shock when I fully realized that Sisters and teachers could be wrong or ignorant.  It seems silly to believe that they would somehow know everything about their religion.  Not knowing that Kings was in the Old Testament was and still is very surprising.

The second thing I learned was quite amusing.  Somehow our little priest lecturer mentioned French kissing.  (I have no idea how this related to his topic.)   St. Michael, a delightful old nun who still wore the old habit, (wimple and dress down to the floor with the large wooden rosary at her waist) innocently asked for an explanation of what French kissing was.  Sister Zelda was all too eager to explain it.  Sister Michael recoiled with all the shock of a squeamish seven year old girl who still believes boys have cooties.

A lot of the Sisters from previous generations had entered the convent when still quite young.  Sometimes, it was their parents who made the decision for them.  Large Catholic families of yesteryear did sometimes tell some of their children that they would become priests or religious.  Even the next generation of Sisters sometimes entered the postulancy while still in high school and as young as 14 or 15.  This was the case with our new Formation Director, Sister Christine.

Sister Christine had never dated.  How much she actually knew about the facts of life and reproduction, I'll never know.  I wasn't about to sit down with her and discuss it.  During puberty and beyond she had been in the company of women.  Maybe females were the focus of her sexual orientation.  Her sexual orientation doesn't and didn't matter.  Acting on it with an inferior was sexual abuse.  Granted Emily Marie and the rest of formation were not children.  Emily Marie was of the age of consent but Sister Christine was our boss.  She had authority on her side.  Despite her fragile appearance and behavior, she was considered the authority over Formation by the rest of the convent.  Maintaining the structure of power became all important in maintaining the order.  Saying "no" when were were supposed to be obedient to our superiors was a moral and legal dilemma.  Sister Christine was abusing her power.

No matter your orientation,  there are areas that you do not touch unless invited to do so by the touchee.  I had not given Sister Christine the green light to "cop a feel" on the basketball court.  The other larger issue was simply this:  When you make vows of chastity, you need to abstain from sexual behavior.  If you fail to do so, you stop doing it and try harder to avoid "near occasions of sin" because that's what it means to make a vow.  (Notice I didn't even mention "sin" which is how this behavior would be viewed in a Catholic context.)

Just as in marriage, a vow is made to commit to another person exclusively.  To engage in an affair or sleep around violates the exclusivity of the relationship.  As a religious, a vow is made to God to abstain from sex so that one can devote one's entire focus and energy to serving Him.  Sexual desire doesn't disappear.  Maybe if the Sisters had been able to discuss it openly, they might have had a better way of dealing with their sexual feelings and energies.   Talk about sex was hidden with elegant and distant references.  The nuts and bolts were missing and that could easily caused the vow of chastity to fall apart as it had for Sister Christine.

No matter how you view sexuality, promising not to and then doing it anyway repeatedly, isn't how things are done.  It is very human, however, and to this day, I feel empathy toward Sister Christine.  She was not off this world in more ways than one.  She was a product and a victim of her stunted past and her present environment.  She was thrust in a position for which she was not prepared or emotionally equipped to handle.  She cracked under the strain and acted out, seeking comfort in the arms of another.  I can not hate this woman.  I didn't then.

When I went directly to Sister Felicity, the top of the chain of command, I tried to delicately describe the situation.  I explained that Sister Christine seemed to be under a lot of stress and with the hysterectomy, etc, her behavior was unusual.   I said that she had engaged in inappropriate contact on the basketball court and that she was spending a lot of time alone behind closed doors with Emily Marie and that it didn't look good to the rest of Formation.

Broken

The people who carry the greatest potential for harming others are often those who are the most broken.  A person's broken parts rise up and obscure the truth or rational thought.  Good decisions are lost in a frantic effort to cover their brokenness and try to keep it a secret from the world.  The people who carry the greatest potential for greatness are also those who are the most broken.  Unlike those that harm, this type of broken person has become strong in all the broken places.  They see the brokenness in others and in themselves with clarity.  They touch us in our broken places and we are healed and broken all at once.   They can transform our lives.

Sister Christine walked through time and space like a fragile reed.  My questions in classes would often leave her flustered.  That left me feeling angry and ashamed of myself all at the same time.  She was broken and all her energy went into hiding that fact.  She shouldn't have tried.  Broken was carved on her forehead.

She really tried to assume her new role as Formation Director.  She tried to do a good job but she was confused and lost.  After having a strong mother figure at the helm who made us feel like enchanted children, having someone who desperately needed a mother herself was unsettling.  Of course, Zelda was determined to find a way to push her out.  At least that is what she said.  Zelda often acted like a minor character in a soap opera.  Her paranoia was entertaining, at first.  Zelda was convinced that Sister Christine had something going on with one of the new postulants.  I thought Zelda had to be dreaming or smoking weed out in the Sister's cemetery during her free time. 

At least when Zelda had an enemy, other than myself, my life was a bit easier.  So, I humored her and participated in a stake out of Sister Christine's room to see if the postulant in question would show up.  She did and she didn't come out of the room for hours.  It didn't look good but we still didn't have any proof.  I pointed this out to Zelda who was then determined to build a case.

All the previous intrigue and personality conflicts were minor when compared to the possibility that there was a lesbian relationship between the two women.  At this point, my world began to crack as it began its journey to upside down.  Young and naive, I was convinced this couldn't be happening.  Zelda was often a bit dramatic and not the smartest tool in the shed.  Talented, yes, but smart, no.  She did possess an animal cunning that I envied.  I had always preferred a more direct route.  This would prove my undoing.

About the time, this new possibility was coming to light, Sister Christine also found out she needed a total hysterectomy.  I tried to attribute some of her unusual behavior to hormonal imbalances.    Well, I did try.  The evidence just kept mounting against her.  She did have a special rapport with this postulant, Emily Marie.  Emily Marie had been in a branch of the military.  She gone to high school at the Valley, the girl's school that adjoined the Motherhouse campus.  Emily Marie knew a lot of the Sisters and had been attracted to religious life after she served her time in the military. Emily Marie was earthy and had some real world experience that many of us hadn't had.  She was "close talker" with a nervous giggle.  It hadn't taken long for Zelda to develop an almost instant dislike to her.  Just as quickly, Sister Christine seemed to be enchanted by Emily Marie.   

At this point, I was Sister Mary Carol and Zelda. . was Sister Zelda.  (I doubt there is a religious order any where that has a Sister Zelda but I so love calling my classmate that, I'm using it here.)  We'd made first vows, Zelda and I.  We were wearing the white veil of the first year novice.  Our horarium was so filled with cleaning that we often skipped our time in the chapel for quiet prayer just to get things done.  Being good housekeepers was taking precedence over learning how to pray.  Prayer wasn't something the Sisters provided a lot of guidance in.  It was a "seek-on-your-own" system.  Maybe they felt that God would somehow inspire us as we sat in silent prayer in a quiet chapel.  Often I feel asleep out of exhaustion.  I knew God was cool with my sleeping but I was very afraid that one of the Sisters would catch me and "rat me out."  The walls often had eyes and ears and of course mouths that were all to eager to blab to the person in charge.

That person in charge of Formation was Sister Christine.  The circumstantial evidence continued to mount against her.  We spent more time focusing on what might be happening than anything else.  I finally spilled the beans about our suspicions to my friends, Sister Deborah and Sister Philip.  At first they were as skeptical as I had been.  Soon they were also on the look out for proof.  Collectively, we were planning a coup, hoping to usurp our leader and gain back someone worthy of following.  A basket ball game provided us with personal experience that things were not as they should be.

Sister Christine and Emily Marie like to play basketball for recreation.  Recreation was a time after dinner allotted for Formation Community building.  We all had to do something together.  Not doing it wasn't an option unless we were sick or had some other pressing matter.  Hopelessly non-athletic.  I hated playing basketball.  Previous basketball games had felt a little too touchy feeling.  Big on denial, I had ignored my feelings.  This evening we'd dressed in gym clothes and headed out for the old school gym to play.  Basketball quickly became a breast groping session.  There could be no more denying what was really happening.  No one needs to block with both hands firmly planted on each breast of a fellow player, especially when that player is me.

I yelled  "TIME OUT"
I marched off the court with the basketball and said, 
"That's it, FOUL! 
I looked right at Sister Christine and said,
"You know that's not part of playing basketball.  This is an excuse for body contact and I'm saying, NO!"

I'd drawn my line in the sand.  Little did I know that none of our Superiors would want to hear what I had to say.  I would soon be in major trouble.

Tangled Memories

At this point in the story, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the order of many of the events.  Initially, there were some very happy days.  Despite the crazy schedule and the monotony of the mundane cleaning that occupied so much of our time, there were happy times as well.  Occasionally, Sister Angela would procure a van for all of Formation to go on an outing.  A trip to Baskin Robbins became a magical thing after being cut off from the world we had known.  There was a lot of good clean fun and laughter.

One summer a small group of us went to see "Kiss Me Kate" at the amphitheater in the Rose Garden.  It was a beautiful summer's day that faded into a wonderful warm evening.  We enjoyed a picnic on the grass and a afternoon and evening free from schedules.  At these times, deciding to enter a convent seemed like a great idea.  We enjoyed an easy camaraderie.  We seemed to share the same purpose.  To that purpose we each had decided to dedicate our lives.  Collectively, this made us stronger, more sure of ourselves. 

In the early days, with Sister Angela at the helm, there was a different spirit in Formation.  Things were not perfect.  Zelda's dramatics and special privileges were difficult to ignore.  Some of the rules still seemed archaic if not down right stupid.  Yet, at this point in time, no one doubted the others sincerity.  There was an atmosphere of respect.  We'd formed an island in the larger convent.  It was a happy one.  Maybe that's why a decision was made to change the Formation Director.  We would lose Sister Angela.  Sister Christine would be taking her place.  None of us in Formation welcomed this change.  We each felt dread.  We anxiously awaited Sister Christine's installment with smiles painted over clenched teeth.  She seemed a very unlikely candidate for this position.  Timid, easily flustered, those of us who had crossed paths with her in the past, did not have fond memories.

Sister Angela had been the Formation Director for some time and did not want to leave her post.  Obedient, faithful nun that she was, she did not protest and did as she was told.  It wasn't easy to say good bye.  Once she left her position, we would not be allowed to talk with her about anything at length unless we had permission.  Permission to talk to one of the professed Sisters was not given easily and was often denied.  The convent believed that talking to too many of the other Sisters would be too confusing for the young Sisters in Training. 

She was a beloved boss, a kind boss and yes, a benign Svegali with an amazing charisma that captured the imagination of a handful of idealistic young women.  She had become the idealized mother to all of us.  I believe that each of us was looking for a loving mother.  Our mothers in the real world were not ours alone.  We had to share them with siblings, jobs, the struggle to provide for their children and the worries that created a chasm between us and what we sought. 

Each of us wanted a mother like the Blessed Mother.  We weren't yet ready to grow up.  We were a small handful of Peter Pan-like girls.  Life had robbed us of something precious.  To compensate for our loss we filled our lives with ideals, promises and Utopian dreams.  The real world had some how left us feel inferior, inadequate and unlovable.  The convent was a way to make up for that lack.  Having a benevolent, older, maternal presence was something that we each longed for and found in Sister Angela.  For a brief period of time, we all seemed to enjoy each others company and the atmosphere of hope.  Any personal doubts or suspicions were easily denied.  That was all to end with the coming of Sister Christine.

Sister Christine was not the devil personified.  She was a very anxious and conflicted women who probably needed a mother more than we did.  Leadership did not come naturally.  When she took over the small class for Postulants, populated by only Zelda and I, it wasn't long before I'd find arguments or questions about the material that would throw her into a cesspool of frustration.  Floundering in the quagmire, her weakness frightened me.  I was often the cat to her mouse.  No, it wasn't the kind thing to do.  It may not have been the right thing.  Certainly, I was acting out because this new director was not the leader/mother that Sister Angela was.  Sister Christine's uncertainty spread like blood in the water.  There were moments when we were sharks, pretty young sharks with a habit and a cherubic smile. 

We'd learned very quickly that "a good nun is a happy nun."   I could swear that I heard those exact words on many an occasion.   Negative emotions or expression were highly suspect.  The unwritten rule against them was strongly enforced.  We kept us practicing our smiles.  We put on smiles as camouflage and entered the new and uncharted waters of Sister Christine's Formation.  Clinging to that smile, I wanted my aching cheeks to convince me that all was right in my small convent world.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  I would soon find out how wrong things could be.

Watering Sticks

Even though I felt like I didn’t belong, I was determined to belong.  The first few days were a blur as I tried to adjust to a radically different life.  After a few days both, my classmate and I were given an horarium.  An horarium is a Latin term for schedule. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horarium ) This schedule accounted for every minute of our waking day.  Not only were we to follow our schedule, one of the postulants’ jobs was to ring a buzzer every hour on the hour during the day to remind the Sisters who were within earshot to turn their minds toward God.

This schedule got old really fast.  We were given an hour a day to pray in addition to attending morning and evening prayer with the Sisters and Mass.  The rest of the time we were cleaning or in classes.  Postulants and First Year Novices were to stay close to home.  Second Year Novices and Junior Professed usually took classes at Portland State in preparation for a degree and teaching certification.  Postulants and First Year Novices were there to be indoctrinated.  It was an intense time for training us how to be religious.  Classes were called “Instructions“.  We spent a lot of time going over “Perfectae Caritatis Pope Paul VI's encyclical on religious life.  (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_perfectae-caritatis_en.html )
We also spent time learning about the particular history of our order and the order’s unique charism.  Charism is a religious term for gift.  In this case, it referred to the particular ministry of the order.  The Sisters of St. Mary were primarily teachers.  There were also a few nurses who staffed the Maryville Nursing Home directly behind the Motherhouse. (The main house or base of operations for the Sisters.  I would soon label it “The Bastille“.)

At this point in the story, with the introduction of terms and encyclicals with a sprinkling of Latin over the top, I know that some readers will begin to feel like they’ve entered a strange new world.  That is exactly how I felt.  Granted I was raised Catholic and had twelve years of Catholic school behind me but nothing prepared me for what my life was rapidly becoming.   It was extremely disorienting.  Keeping up with the horarium and getting everything done well on the schedule was extremely difficult.  We spent a lot of time cleaning.  Floors, bathrooms, stairs, dishes all required a daily and perfect cleansing.   The chores were to be rotated among the younger Sisters .  Some how I usually ended up cleaning the stair well by the chapel. 

Four flights of stairs and landings plus ledges and railings were to be cleaned daily by me.    This job was to leave the stairway spotless.  I was to sweep each individual step on my hands and knees with a small whisk broom and dust pan.  I hated this job.  It took forever.  My knees soon showed the crosscut pattern of the metal stair edges.  It would be so much faster with a regular broom. Innocently, I suggested that I use a regular broom instead.  You would have thought I suggested we all slap on some makeup, grab a pack of smokes and go bar hopping.  Apparently, I was completely missing the point.  This task was to humble me.  It was to increase my reliance on God.  Questioning the method was almost blasphemy.  If my “Superior” was to instruct me to do anything, I was not to question or think of a better way, I was simply and silently to do it. 

The example often used to illustrate this point was this:  “Your Superior tells you to water a  dead stick in the ground.  You know the stick is dead.  You know you could water it for the rest of your life and the stick will not grow but you do it anyway, without question because that is what you’ve been told to do.  If you are to vow obedience you have to live it.”

As a questioning soul of the 60’s and 70’s, this story always raised a red flag.  What if your Superior was Hitler and  he was telling you to exterminate an order of Catholic nuns?  Of course, this was a ridiculous and blasphemous example so I knew enough not to use it but I kept it in my head.  I spent a lot of time watering sticks the first year.  It was a skill I never mastered.  I continued to question and my questions gradually made me less popular, less accepted among my Superiors.

Instead of using initials I'm going to give the other people in this story names.  These names are fictitious so as make some effort to conceal their identity.  Classmate, Z is now, Zelda.  Formation Director A. is now, Sister Angela.  Sister F will be Sister Felicity.  It will make it easier to read and a lot easier to write.
My sense of humor and maverick spirit did find kindred spirits in most of the other young women in formation.  Sister Deborah and Sister Phillip.  soon became close friends.   Their friendship was a safe harbor in an increasingly upside down world.  Laughter was good medicine.  It helped me cope.  Having friends helped even more.  As for my classmate, Zelda . . . at first we both tried to be friends.  We were too different from each other.   No amount of prayer and sugar coating could force something that wasn’t meant to be.  Zelda was always Sister Angela’s favorite.  Sister Angela didn’t even try and hide it.   She admitted  it with some embarrassment.  As a result, Zelda got lot of exceptions and accommodations.  She’d been a fine arts major and was allowed to bring her tools and have her own workroom space to work on her projects.  When a friend married a brother, she was allowed to leave the convent, dress in a bridesmaid dress and be part of the wedding.  She was allowed visits with family members at times other than the Sunday’s that were designated family visits.  These same privileges were not extended to me.  Asking for exceptions usually resulted in my receiving a lecture to humble or shame me.  It’s no wonder that I would soon mistrust Zelda, the Golden Girl.

When we entered as postulants, there was a young lady who was a first year novice who would not be there much longer.   She always appeared troubled and nervous.  She waged a battle against a bad case of psoriasis.  I knew it was triggered by stress and she seemed to have tons of it heaped on her.  My classmate took a quick dislike to Sister Eloise.   Zelda often had private talks with Sister Angela.  After one of these talks, Zelda, told me that Sister Eloise didn’t belong in the convent.  She thought that Sister Eloise may be a danger to Sister Angela.  She whispered, “Sister Eloise is unstable."
Apparently, the mind games had begun.  Zelda would play me a while longer.  Even then, I felt for Sister Eloise.  Something didn’t seem right.  I didn’t like what was happening but I was still new.  I had no idea what had happened before we came.  But Sister Eloise nervousness and occasional odd remarks troubled me.  I passively watched as an odd drama unfolded.  Sister Eloise was the bad guy.  Zelda was the cowboy in the white hat.

When Sister Eloise didn’t show up for breakfast one morning, it was no surprise to later be told that she had left the convent.  One day she was there and one day she was not.  No goodbyes.  She was spirited away in a shroud of mystery and what seemed like shame.  This was a disturbing development.  Zelda said, “Good riddance.”

It took me a while to figure out many of the “whys” of the convent world.  Some, I’ll never really understand.  The convent was structured much like a branch of the military.  Formation was boot camp. There was a hierarchy or change of command.  There were exercises.  All jobs and assignments served the greater good or the whole.  The individual’s needs were always secondary to the needs of the larger whole.  Indoctrination and participation in a “group think” mentality was essential if the organization was to continue.  Insubordination was not to be tolerated.  Protecting the group think mentality is central to maintaining the system.   

Surprisingly, this “group think” mentality is not necessarily bad.  There is a time and place for it.  There are people who are well suited to participate in this type of organization.  Unfortunately, there is also room for abuse and corruption in a system as closed as this.  While I understand much about the structure and hierarchy of the convent, it was not a system that I could easily accept.  It seemed archaic and obsolete in the early 1980’s.  The rules often seemed to be more important than the values they were said to protect.
Compassion and  justice were often lost for the sake of maintaining the order.

Not all religious orders are like this.  It isn’t like this for all the people who entered the order I did.  This is what it was like for me.  I bring my bias to the telling of this story.  In the telling, I have already alienated one acquaintance who must find my account a betrayal of what she believes about Catholicism.  I regret offending anyone.   It is not my intent.  I’m just telling what being a nun was like for me, how it changed me, what I believe.  You are free to draw your own conclusions.  I will not apologize for telling the story.  I won’t sugar coat the details.    Over the years, I’ve known some amazing Catholics.  I’ve also known some amazing agnostics, a handful of atheists who were good people, a few peaceful Muslims, some great Jews, and a whole lot of assorted flavors of Protestant.    People are people.  Many are convinced that their brand of truth or religion is the only one, the accurate one. 

While there is much about Catholicism that I truly love, there are a few things I question.  I don’t question lightly or easily.  Most of my extended family are practicing Catholics.   I love them dearly and respect them greatly for their steady faith.    I often wish that things could be easier for me.  I wish that my experiences in the convent hadn’t altered what I believe.  I wish that I wouldn’t stubbornly cling to what I believe to be true in my heart.  Yet, I do. 

I can not ignore who I am, what my mind questions, what I choose to believe.  It is not done thoughtlessly or with indifference.  In my heart of hearts, I have always believed that God gives humans an intellect and expects us to use it.  The God-given intellect must question, must apply reason, it must apply critical thinking skills to the problems of faith, ethics and life.  It is what the intellect was created to do.   My questions do not arise out of disrespect.  They simply arise.  Once asked, they beg an intelligent and thoughtful answer.  To say, “This is what has always been done” or “Water the stick because you’ve been told to do so by a Superior” doesn’t provide any answers.  It does betray fear.  If the real reason or rationale can not withstand one person ‘s scrutiny, than maybe it’s time to rethink what been done and why.

Rules can never supplant love and love must be the point of religious observance or we have all lost our souls.

My choice to enter the convent alienated some of my old friends.  When I left the convent, one friend told me that she could no longer be friends with me because I’d turned my back on my vocation.  Now, as I tell my story, I have offended an acquaintance who did not like my view of the events of my life.  To be on the receiving end of this “friend dumping” isn’t pleasant but it isn’t a great loss either.  Many friendships come to a natural end.  They do not last forever.  Life and situations change and friends often change with it.  Maybe it would show a greater sensitivity to other’s feelings if I were less candid about my own.  It’s more fun and more honest to tell it like it is.  I let the words fall out because they feel right to me, at the moment not because they are right or the definitive truth.  The truth is not something that belongs to me alone I just carry a piece of it as does everyone.  This is my story.  The telling is tainted by the lens of my perception and the passage of time but the essence remains.  It is mine.

My love of a good story led me to study English in college.  In studying literature, in reading countless stories, I closed the book or finished the poem and left a little richer inside than when I began.  Each character in everything I’ve ever read, fiction and non-fiction alike has given me the gift of a broader understanding.  Sometimes that understanding is very different from mine.  It may be an understanding that I find wrong or immoral but it is an understanding nonetheless.   

Of my readers, I ask only this, learn what you can from me.  You don’t have to agree with my view.  You don’t have to like what you read but don’t be afraid to read and learn what it was like for one young woman to enter a convent and leave almost 3 years later.    My truth is not a threat to you, unless you see it that way.  If you do, then I fear for your world.  It is too easily shaken. 

Walk in my shoes for a little while and you will have a better idea of what it’s like to walk in my shoes.  Ask yourself what you might do differently or what you believe and I have helped you to think and question.   Ask yourself, if someone told you to “Water that stick” would you?   Use my story to understand your own story and you’ll prove my telling worthwhile.