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.  

Blood on the Tracks

Some crimes don't leave a body, no obvious and immediate sign that loudly proclaims a wrong has occurred.  Sometimes all you have is the blood on the tracks.  Such a wrong leaves behind a trail of devastation.   The mind struggles to comprehend it.  There is no body left behind to scream in death that a crime has occurred. Yet, the impact of the wrong continues to ripple outward in an ever widening circle of destruction.

Sitting behind the Maryville reception desk, I would occasionally be nudged by this circle of destruction.  Overhearing intimate moments in other people's drama made me feel like a random voyeur.  I was in unwelcome territory and yet this watching other people's drama was compelling.  I was drawn into stories of struggle and minor tragedies.  All these stories helped distract me from the horrible story in which I was trapped.  One day, this eavesdropping into other people's lives took me some where I didn't want to go.  One day it took me to a place where I saw for myself, the blood on the tracks. Those tracks lead me directly to the archbishop's hands. 

During the days of my Maryville exile, the archbishop held a meeting of many of the diocesan priests at Maryville.  Priests trickled in slowly, quietly.  The mood was somber and meditative or that's what I first thought.  I could sense that something wasn't right and was more alert than usual.  It wasn't long after the meeting began that a noise drew my attention.  This noise got louder.  It was the sound of a man in agony,  the sound of a man suffering the tortures of the damned.  The noise didn't come from an elderly resident.  Looking up from the front desk, the sound grew louder.  The intensity and tone was chilling.  Suddenly, very near where I sat, several priests appeared.  They struggled to physically support another.  In the center of this unusual cluster came a low and plaintive sobbing and these words,

  "I've been begging the bishop for help for years.  I told him I had a problem.
  I begged him to reassign me.  I begged him to help me.  Now, it's come to this. 
  Why?  Why?"

Once spoken, he returned to convulsive sobbing.  A tall man, his knees buckled under the weight of his anguish, the burden of what he had done.  The supportive cluster strained and struggled to keep him from collapsing on the floor.  With great effort, they pulled him into a private place and closed the door.

The door had not closed quickly enough.  I knew what I had seen.  The first of the great sex abuse scandals to hit the local papers in the 1980's had just done so.  The sobbing man was the priest who now stood accused of sexually abusing young boys over many years.  This man's actions were abhorrent.  He was an adult in a position of authority.  He used that power to exploit and abuse children.  Yet, the man I saw that day didn't look very powerful.  He was a shattered human being, broken and sick.  I wondered how he got to where he was.  Was he abused as a young boy himself?  Is that how things started to go so terribly wrong? 

I'd just seen the carnage of a tortured human being imploding before my eyes.  Revulsion and pity flooded me as I watched the drama before me.  "I've been begging him for years", echoed in my head.  Revulsion, pity were soon followed by anger.  The archbishop bore a great responsibility and for whatever reason had failed to respond.  He hadn't heard or hadn't understood the pleas of a pedophile priest.  In ignoring the problem, he had allowed it to continue unchecked until time, the legal system and a trail of victims had made silence no longer an option.

To the press, the archbishop would soon claim, as many others of his ilk did, that "We didn't know what was going on."  Every time I heard this archbishop claim ignorance, I knew it was a lie.  Every time any bishop or prelate claimed "we didn't know" I believed they were lying also.  These weren't white lies or a gentle withholding of the truth justified under the concept of mental reservation.  This was an ugly, bald-faced lie, the kind of lie put forth under advice from one's attorney or press agent.  These were not words to expect from men who were said to "represent Christ on earth".  These were not the words of a shepherd of God's people.  These were the words of politicians who spoke the language of power to protect themselves.  Human souls are often the casualties of such political machination.

As I struggled to process the many emotions that coursed through me like demon rivers, I began to feel a deep shame.  Shame that I was associated with a Church that had failed to do the right thing and then failed to admit it.  I'd seen the blood on the tracks and it made me sick.

The Fight to Write

Sometimes you don't know what you believe in until you have to fight for it.  Yesterday, I fought to write.  It wasn't a battle I expected to wage.  Writing does take time away from my family.  Lately, I've been terrible about giving each of them their Just 10 minutes a day.  Life has drained me.  I struggle to keep my balance.  I sacrifice what I really believe about education to earn a paycheck.  I sacrifice a lot of time and what I'd rather do for my family every day.  It has to be done.  Yet,  I still need time for me.  Yesterday, I had to fight for it.

Whether or not people read what I write isn't as important as having the chance to write.  The words flow out of me as if they have a life of their own, a life I can only dream of.  My life is not my own.  I'm up at 5 a.m. stealing  moments before the demands of my day begin. 

I invest a lot of time in my family.  I could invest more.  I could increase the quality of that time.   Increasing this quality is what I most want to do.  It's the purpose of Just 10.   My energies could be improved in that regard.   I also want to increase the quality of the time I spend with myself.  Writing could be an complete waste of my time.  I may never do anything with it other than spit blather onto a blog but it is what is important to me.  When I write, I feel like I have something to say.   I write because the words have no place to go.

My immediate family doesn't read what I write.  My daughter says she doesn't understand it.  My husband says, "I'm not as smart as you." 
Hearing that I feel very alone.  Yesterday, while they watched football and America's Funniest Videos, I watched the speeches of MLK and Robert Kennedy.   They felt robbed of my attention.  I just felt robbed.

Sometimes, a person has to take a stand, has to fight for what they believe in, even when no one seems to believe in you, when believing in yourself is all that you have left.

Mindless Menace of Violence

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day, I'm taking a break from my own "memoir" writing and posting this video.  This speech was given by Robert Kennedy at the City Club in Cleveland shortly after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.   Hearing it again, I was flooded with emotion.    Our headlines have once again shattered our sense of peace with the violence in Tuscon.   The world needs strong leaders now more than ever.  It needs good people to rise up and take a stand.

I was still a child when we lost Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy but I felt a great sense of loss.  I wondered what kind of world I would  live in as an adult.   A world in which leaders lives were so easily taken?   As a child, I was fascinated by the speeches of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  I listened when ever they spoke on television.  They spoke powerfully and with deep conviction.   I knew that I was listening to great men.  They helped me dream of a better world.

I choose Bobby's Speech after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and not one of King's own speeches because it seemed more somber.  It eulogized King's death by paying honor to the values  for which King lived and died.  Bobby gave Martin a voice although his life had been taken.  We need to give both these men a voice today.

Many years stand between today and the time when they were alive.  Their speeches are no less powerful.   When I listen to them now, they have the power to move me, to help me once again dream of a better world.

In recent years, we've learned how many of our leaders, past and present,  have "feet of clay".    We know of their infidelities, their transgressions.  In accepting their humanity, we have allowed ourselves to forget the greater values, the higher moral ground of which they spoke.  In accepting their imperfections, we have grown closed and cynical.  No political leader is perfect.  We can not expect them to be.  Those who rose above the limits of their own selves and spoke of social justice, peace, and a higher awareness need our attention today.  Now more than ever.

 I avoid political discussions.  I step away from all debate and conflict.  My silence has failed me.  In fearing debate, I have stood for nothing.  I have lost my way.

We all have lost our way.  We have allowed fighting among and within political parties to distract us.  We have lost sight of the greater good, the good to which we all must strive if this is to be a great nation again.  Listen to the voices of the past, with open minds and hearts.  Truth is timeless.  We all need to work together for a better future, for our sake, for our children's sake and our children's children.  Let us work together for a better world.  A world that sees the end to war and violence.  A world that sees the beginning of a global cooperation that opens the door to a new age.  What amazing things we could accomplish, united at last in peace working together for the benefit of all humankind.  I, too, have a dream.  It is one many before me have dreamt.  Let us keep the dream alive.


Transcript of speech.

City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio


April 5, 1968



This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.



It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.



Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.



No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.



Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.



"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."



Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.



Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.



Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.



For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.



This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.



I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.



We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.



Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.



We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.



Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.



But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.



Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

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.

Among the Masses

As a young student in Catholic school, I was very shy and withdrawn.  I lived in almost constant fear of the teachers, especially the Sisters.  That fear wasn't rational then.  In the convent, when fear was often justified, I became more outgoing.  I discovered that I related well to most people.

When I began taking classes at Portland State, wearing a habit really made me stand out.    Sometimes it made me a target.  One day in the book-buy-back line, a devout pagan eager to make me uncomfortable approached me with  declaration of his pagan beliefs and the coming of the solstice.  He loudly said, "I don't believe in God.  I'm a pagan.  I celebrate the solstice.  Are you going to celebrate it?"
He was so looking for trouble but I didn't want it or the extra attention.  I looked at him and said, "Yeah, I'll celebrate in my own way.  I don't have a problem with your pagan beliefs.  I admire your conviction."
He stared at me blankly.  Then with a dismissive gesture turned and walked away.  I knew if some of the nuns heard what I'd just said there would have been hell to pay.    His being a pagan didn't threaten me or detract from what I chose to believe.  If I expected to be respected for my choices, I'd better extend that same courtesy to someone else.    That habit didn't allow me to be blissfully anonymous but this was the life I had chosen and there were bound to be sacrifices.

Being approachable and human seemed the best way to honor my "uniform".  I never cared much for preaching to others.  I wanted to be accepted by them even more so now that I wasn't widely accepted into convent community life.  Once most students got used to me in class, I could relax and learn.   It was harder to make friends while a nun.  I was too much an anomaly.  People were either too solicitous or projected too many of their own negative feelings about God or religion on to me.  Can't say as I'd blamed them.
The outfit brought out the classic "brown-nosers" and the occasional kook.

One hopelessly obnoxious student kept drawing attention to me in a Mythology class.  This older male student was very literal and very Christian.  He'd interrupt the professor at least several times a class and try to divert the lecture to me with phrases like, "Let Sister tell you" or "I bet Sister knows."  The prof and I would just ignore him.  Inside, I was steaming.  Finally, I got angry.  After another, "Let the Great and Wonderful Oz tell us, "  I said to him in front of the entire class,
"You've got to stop doing that.  I'm here to learn and listen to the professor.  I'm not an expert on mythology.  I'm just like you.  You've got to stop interrupting and so we can all learn something."
The professor shot me an odd glance.  The interrupter mumbled a quiet, "Sorry, Sister" and class returned to normal, well as normal as it could.

Several years later this same professor was fired.  He'd falsified his degree and education apparently claiming a Ph.D from a Chinese university that didn't exist.  He lacked the proper credentials to be a professor.  It was too bad.  He sure knew a lot about mythology.  He'd even created a myth for himself and tried to live in it.  I could understand his motivation even if I didn't approve of his methods.

In between classes, I'd try and find a quiet place to hide and to study.  On a particularly cold day, I decided to wear a pair of black tights under my habit.  I may even had some "old-lady" boots on too.    I wasn't dressed like the typical nun.  The uncouth was oozing out of me for the sake of warmth.  An angry young student walked up to me and with a sneer in his voice and on his face said, "What are you dressed up for?"
I looked at him and allowed time for a pregnant pause and asked him, "What are you dressed up for?
He slunk away, mumbling something under his breath.  I sat there hating that I was such a target for other people's anger at God, religion and themselves.  I hadn't signed up for this.  I never anticipated being so visible.  The chasm that existed between myself and the world at large often felt too wide.  At the same time, it didn't seem that there was a chasm at all.  On some level, I understood their anger and felt it too.
I'd entered to escape the world and maybe some of my anger but I discovered that the world inside the convent was not the haven for which I had longed.  My Utopian search had landed me in a hell of Miltonian proportions.    In my mind, the angels wept.

Yet, there were many bright spots found at college.  Ever the nerd, I loved most of my classes and what I was learning.  I stumbled into a Shakespeare survey course taught by a fabulous professor who made Shakespeare come alive.  To him, I will be forever grateful.  After completing an essay test one day, the professor followed me out of the room and called after me, " Sister, do you have a minute?"  Sister, I'm Jewish but a lot of my friends are Christians and gentiles.  I admire many of them.  Do the Sisters at your convent know how talented a writer you are? Are they letting you use that talent?  You could be of such service to your faith."

Blushing, at a complete loss for words, I managed to squeak a small, "Thank, you."  How could I possible explain to him what my life was like?  Ironically, his words felt more like a slap than most of the abusive verbiage spat at me by some of the Sisters.  How long it had been since anyone had given me a compliment?  What was I to do with the information?  Seeing my distress, he quickly added, "You have a wonderful way of touching the reader when you are allowed to write about something for which you have great passion.  You could really touch the world."
He turned and went back inside the classroom.  I stood and blinked back tears.  So very flattered and crushed by his words, all at the same time.