Joseph and Mary Among us in Disguise

 

Sometimes things are not as bad as you think they are:  they are worse.  The day I learned that true-fact is the day I almost burst out crying at work almost two decades ago.  I also learned the important lesson that you ONLY learn by experience, regardless of how many times people say to you, “Don’t judge.”  (which I hate by the way.  By default, when someone says, “Don’t judge,” they have already judged you, and that doesn’t feel good either).  I don’t remember their names, but I remember the day I met them in person.  I always think of them as Mary and Joseph now.  Yes, that Mary and Joseph.  They were young.  They were in distress.  And they were fighting a System that doesn’t always see the situation in entirety before it passes judgment.

I received a phone call from a young man asking that I produce proof of his attending a birthing class with his fiancée.  The urgency in his voice was palpable.  I became suspicious.  I presumed this was some attempt at fighting the young woman for custody of the baby.  He said his lawyer told him it would help to prove he was a good father if he could get written proof of attending the classes.  When I hear the word “lawyer” my ears perk up.  People never seem to have lawyers engaged when things are going well or are uncomplicated.  I wasn’t sure if I could find the information he needed and I wasn’t breaking any speed records to get it.  Again, I presumed he was making this young mother’s life miserable in some way. I deferred him.  But he just called back again, pleading for the proof that he attended the five classes, that were two hours each. 

The next week, the couple walked into my office.  The young woman then personally asked me for the proof that he attended the classes.  The feel of something being “off” was in the air, but I had never felt this kind of OFF before.  I asked her why they needed proof for attendance for the lawyer.  She looked at me with deep pain and said, “you don’t know?”  No. 

You can understand what rain is being inside the house and looking out the window to watch it rain.

You can understand what rain is being under an umbrella and seeing it rain around you.

But you only can truly understand rain when you are standing IN THE RAIN, outside Noah’s ark, and getting soaking wet.

I was about to get rained-on.

She told me the baby had been ill in the middle of the night and needed a decongestant.  The good young father had gotten up so that she could rest and gave the baby cough syrup.  Only … he accidentally gave the baby too much.  That is easy to do no matter what age you are.  I reflected later that I had made a similar mistake with a non-lethal medication once and was very unnerved.  But what happened to this couple is … the baby died.  And so they had some part of the Institution of our society trying to put him in jail for manslaughter when it was a very tragic accident. 

How do you know someone is innocent in a case like this?  Perhaps I would make a poor juror, but I could see his innocence with my own eyes:  as she spoke, the pain that went across his face was even painful to watch.  He dropped his chin down as if his life would be “over” no matter which way the court went with the data.  And I get that.  Haven’t we all done things in life, even much less serious, that haunt our memories?  We may be the only one who remembers the mis-placed word, the unkind event, whatever it was, that torments us?  We want forgiveness, but we cannot forgive ourselves.  In his case, I sensed his struggle would be indefinite.  And she stood by him when I handed them the proof of class attendance and I wished them healing and peace.  How I wanted to wrap my arms around both of them to show them how deeply I felt for them … Mary and Joseph seeking a place of shelter from this terrible sadness – the loss of their beloved child.

At this time of year when we celebrate the birth of The Baby in Bethlehem, let us remember in a special way all those who have lost children … in all of the many and sad ways people lose children.  Let us grieve with those who grieve, so that we may hasten the time of rejoicing to return.

Some kind of guilt

 

A frigid 29 degrees outside, my vehicle inside was only a little warmer than that as I drove down the long, dark road back to my house.  Out of the corner of my left eye, just above the steering wheel I could see the bright yellow glow of an icon on my dashboard with the “low tire pressure” symbol.  I had to decide if I would go to the station on the way home or go all the way home and deal with it tomorrow.  I do not enjoy the proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, so I stopped and boosted all 4 tires with some air.  Didn’t I just do this last week?  Darn it all.  I HATE having to inflate my tires.  Last year, I had The Guys seal around the tire stems because we determined that was how the air was slipping out.  Maybe I need to do that again.  I feel like I go through this every year when the colder weather sets in.  I know when.  I know why.  And, I know what to do to make it right.  Yet it is all ONE BIG NUISANCE.

To take this situation as an analogy, I offer you:  GUILTY FEELINGS.  No one enjoys feeling guilty.  Even the people who suffer with scrupulosity – the tendency to nit-pick yourself to death mentally about even the smallest of your own faults or failings – don’t enjoy feeling badly. 

Humans deal with this feeling in a variety of ways -both unproductive and opportunistically.  We have people that wallow in feeling horrible.  We have people who write songs to justify their guilt, “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right…” and … we have people who label the guilt as if it is bad in and of itself, like a broken feeling attached to no piece of reality that they should be facing in and of itself.

“Catholic guilt” is a phrase that sets my teeth on edge like no other because it is a misnomer.  Guilt is not “catholic.”  It is a universal human experience of people that have at least a modicum of functioning conscience inside them.  I propose: Guilt can actually be a GOOD thing in that it points you, like the dashboard icon in your car, to something that needs immediate attention.  The most unhelpful thing for our own personal well-being is to damn the torpedoes and not address what the Guilt is pointing to.  That would be akin to me continuing to drive on tires that are leaking air … eventually the whole vehicle will be immobilized.

I was thinking about guilt the other day.  From Real Life, I offer you the various types of guilt thrown at us – actually thrown at me – in the last year.  (Maybe the headache I’ve been sporting the past three weeks is not sinus pressure, just STRESS?!)  These are not reasonable guilt-experiences.  They are based in societal judgmentalism and the current “cancel-culture.”

Ø  From FarceBook:  “This post is being fact-checked.”  (Huh.  While you are at it, why don’t you fact-check CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and the FBI.  It’d keep you busier and be a better use of your time then chasing ME.)

Ø  From pet adoption groups:  “Don’t buy from a breeder, adopt a pet!”  (I am a breeder of AKC spaniels.   I am not a backyard puppy mill and I don’t need my business rained-on.   I am not a bad person.)

Ø  From a friend of another race:  “You don’t know what it is like to be racially profiled!”  (Yes I do.  When I get stopped for a speeding ticket I am almost guaranteed to get one.  I am sober.  I am white. I am single.  And I cannot cry-on-command.  I only got let off the time I offered the Officer some french fries…. and he refused them.)

Ø  From a certain world leader who is anti-capitalism and is critical of American prosperity as if we are all irresponsible and selfish with our finances.  My mailbox hauls in no less than 20 solicitations A WEEK from charities of every kind.  (Did someone sell my name on a list?!)  If I don’t work, the donations that I am actually able to eke out will stop.  I think that for all that is criticized about Americans, we are STILL the most generous people in the world.  My dear grandfather used to pack up boxes of clothes and send them back to Europe for our family that lived in poverty there. 

Ø  (self-imposed guilt)  My neighbors decorate for Christmas like Disneyland-East.  I have all I can do to wash the algae off the white deck posts and wrap a strand of lights around it and add a small Christmas tree by the 4^th week of Advent.

Ø  From H.R. for telling a group of us not to tell interview candidates about the weather here.  Why?  Because it STINKS for 6 months out of the year.  I am literally EATING Vitamin D’s by the handful because the lack of sun this time of year makes me feel like it’s raining inside my head, not just outside my window. 

I could go on.  You get the idea.  My point is that for all the people out there who are saying that their guilt is residually imposed due to their Catholic upbringing or schooling, they are full of baloney.  Most of the guilt thrown on us on a daily basis has very little to do with religion.  I will go so far as to say that the guilt we feel for things that we have done may actually point us to amending our life choices.  Guilt could, hypothetically, move us to be a better person.  We have to entertain the idea, at least, that we make mistakes and could actually do better. 

But what do we DO with guilt?  As I mentioned above, some people just blame an institution, like a religion, for their feelings of guilt.  Others ignore the guilt and persist in whatever it is that makes them feel guilty.  It reminds me of the story of the two farmers talking near the mailbox.  The hound lying on the front porch let out a pitiful, mournful howl.  The visiting farmer asked, “what’s the matter with your dog?”  The reply:  “Nothing.  There’s a nail sticking up from a board and he just lays down on it and howls.”  GET OFF THE NAIL, DAWG!!!

Did you ever have a heart-to-heart with a friend and come away feeling that the load was lighter?  That is the purpose of the Catholic sacrament of confession.  It is also the purpose of the 12-steps in Anonymous groups:  “Admit the exact nature of your wrongs to another person; where it is possible and will not do further harm, make amends; admit that you are powerless to change on your own volition and need a Higher Power.”  The Bible author puts it succinctly:  “Confess your sins, one to another, that you might be healed.”  (James 5:16).  St. James may have wrote that, but it was really God’s idea.  He wants you to feel better and make progress.

So, if you are looking to give yourself a great gift for Christmas or New Years’, what about that?  What about ditching the guilt in some constructive manner so that you can move forward with your life?  “Cancel” the guilty feelings by honesty, faith, and acts of charity.  You will feel better, I know you will.

 

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The Final word is never that ...

 

Obituaries, like resume’s and eulogies, never tell the whole story.  I remember being told of a man who was eulogized long and fabulous by a clergyman at the funeral.  His sister-in-law, really his closest relative since his late wife passed a decade before, commented wryly, “That was a very nice speech.  But I don’t think he was talking about my brother-in-law.”  And there you have it.  None of us ever really has the whole story on someone’s life.  But we can put the pieces together from the legacy they left behind and have a pretty good idea.  Then you can come to some kind of general conclusion that sits with you as the frosting on the cake for your own remaining days.

At the cemetery recently with family members, we had a funny set of exchanges. 

My father: “Look, the whole right side is still empty.”  (ie. There are available burial plots.)

Me: “No dad.  There just are no standing headstones.  There are flat ones…” (and I’m thinking they are less expensive and make it easier for the caretakers to cut the grass, because I am all about cost & efficiency relative to decisions.)

Some other family member: “Some of those monuments are …”

Me: “I definitely want a monument.”

My Younger – and Only – Sister: “Yeah, and do you want it to say, ‘Joan of Arc was an amateur’?”

My Mother just laughed and enjoyed the ribbing I got.

Me: “No, really.  I think I just want a statue of St. Francis and the Wolf.  That would say it all.”  (oh, on so many levels.)

As we left the cemetery later, my father commented on what a nice job the priest did at the church when he eulogized my precious aunt.  And he was right.  The priest, from meeting my aunt at church in prior days and from comments provided by the family, pretty much captured the type of person she was in the limited time he had. 

There is an old saying: “Ah, to live in heaven with the saints in all their glory; but to live with them here on earth is quite another story.”  And while that is true of, oh, pretty much everyone I have ever met, it was most decidedly not true about my aunt, my godmother.  Of her, the writer of Hebrews 11 spoke when he wrote after eulogizing great Old and New Testament saints of the past: “the world was not worthy of them.”  That was her.

So, in a sense, I just want to write a few things from those of us in the Unworthy World…

My mother remarked that her sister was “always in your corner.”  And by that, she meant EVERY FAMILY MEMBER’S CORNER.  She was an encourager.  While she lived a simple and cautious life, she delighted in our successes and sighed for our misses.  When I in my youthful drama would wail about something, she would assure me, “This, too, shall pass.”  And she was certainly right about that – but I could not see it in my younger days.  She had the gift of being a supportive friend to all of us.  She wasn’t the kind of adult that acted like a kid to be accepted by the kids; she was an adult who was aware of being in her own skin, and treated us as individuals – with respect, affection, and guidance on an as-needed basis.  She did not have the ability, nor the desire to, elevate herself or her authority at the expense of our feelings and self-esteem.  She had an almost indigenous sense of Matthew Kelly’s concept of encouraging people to be “the very best version of themselves.”  Maybe somehow she realized the true path to wholeness and holiness lies in becoming who God crafted you to be, and finding the way to that is the work of a lifetime.  Yes, she was truly “in our corner.”

She was the biggest fan of my writings.  She looked forward to getting my blog pieces mailed to her on a regular basis, I think, because she could enjoy a good story.  Really, when I started to more intently put pen to paper about six years ago, I needed just ONE person to motivate me to write.  I needed to know that from ONE person, the praise would be fair and any critique would be gentle.  This gave me the courage to let my mind flow freely.  I can pretty much type as fast as I can think – make of that what you will – so I needed to write for someone who wouldn’t further bog me down with any unfair comparisons or dampening criticism. 

I initially started writing as a young girl by leaving notes to my Uncle at his house.  He worked crazy shifts for the electric company and my mother and I would go to his house when he was gone and leave him desserts and clean a little … and then I would leave him notes telling him of any sightings of turtles at his pond or chasings of the ducks, etc.  One day, he left me a very small white-with-gold-gild diary.  It had a lock and key on it too.  As a young girl I found this very cool.  But I did not use it much.  The need to write didn’t hit me as hard as it does now.  Sometimes I wake up at night and an entire article is in my head banging to get out.

Over the years, I have kept a journal.  That was mostly encouraged by those in the spiritual/theological circles in which I traveled.  Later, in an English Communications class, our teacher who was the writer of the script for a famous Marian religious movie remarked to us: “write every day.  It will help you get better at it.”  That was the most important thing I learned in that class.  I have also realized that if I want to prevent zealots from chopping my bones into “relics” after I die, I need to leave some written ruminations and remnants of the mud in my life so they will conclude I was not their kind of saint.  I can be a saint, just not that kind of saint.

My aunt was a saint.  But she was not a plastic dashboard saint.  She was aware of her reality and it kept her humble.  She was also a saint with a sense of humor.  She stayed married, to the same man, for over 50 years.  She raised four children.  For that kind of longevity, you need a sense of humor.   She loved every grandchild, niece, and nephew, and any friend we brought in the door to meet her.  You could have hung a sign over her doorway that said, “All are welcome in this place …” Her kitchen table was always a place of hospitality.  She always had time to sit down.  “Sit down, tell me what’s new in your life…”

When I lived at home, my favorite place on Saturday night was NOT out haunting the night life with other teenagers:  it was at the kitchen table with any available family member gathered at my aunt’s house.  Later as adults, we walked in the door with wine, cheese, cookies.  She had her own stash of desserts waiting for us.  She was the hub of the wheel of our lives.  She was the center of the circle of love, but she would argue the point that it is JESUS who is in the center.  But maybe He was the center because she invited Him there, and she brought Him there by the way she loved.  In fact, in the last decade, she began to refer to us as her “special circle.”  If you thought you might be in that circle, rest assured, you were. 

I asked her once if there was a specific reason she thought of us as her circle.  She couldn’t really answer the question.  Perhaps I phrased it poorly.  And I needed to be content with that.  However, I will reference the lyrics of the famous camp hymn, “Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by?  There’s a better land awaiting in the sky Lord, in the sky.”  Perhaps this song is the closest that Protestants get to our Catholic idea of “the communion of saints.”  We believe that we are linked by both love and prayer to those who have gone before us.  It is not linear, it is circular.  I pray for you- you pray for me -and it all circles back around until we are united in love with our Creator.

Speaking of which, my precious Aunt had a marked deepening of her faith at one point – most likely before I came into the world because I always remember her being devout…. And that’s a 58-year memory.  As a result of her faith, she learned to ground herself – and all the rest of us – in prayer.  It was not uncommon to be visiting at her home when we were kids and be invited to join her for the family rosary.  It truly was a speed-rosary, taking maybe 15 minutes, but it was an important point of teaching the young that we can stop and pray at any point in the day and give our attention to God.  It also was fairly common for her to slip away from a conversation and say, “just help yourself to the snacks, and stay as long as you like, I’m going to do my devotions.”  And that meant she had a certain collection of prayers she would say, and then she would review her little book with her prayer intentions hand-written in it with God.  Have I seen the little black book?  Yes.  Do I remember what is in it?  Only one thing:  she was praying at one point for a tumor that had appeared on our collie’s eye.  Other than that, I suspect all contents of that book are relegated to the realm of sacred things like a Catholic confession:  once you see it, your mind erases all memory of its contents.  All you know is it is God’s Stuff and not your business.

One of her young grandsons was sitting quietly in his room at home one night.  His momma asked him, “What are you doing in here?”  He replied with all the frankness of a little guy: “I’m doing my devotions.”  Enough said.

I credit my aunt and uncle with giving me one of the best stress-reducing techniques I have in my arsenal:  the Sunday drive.  They used to just slip away on a Sunday afternoon and visit various spots in New England, and grab a sundae at Friendly’s “ice cream parlor,” and return home.  As a young teen, they often took me with them.  Perhaps that was not very romantic for them to have a niece along for the ride, but they always made me feel welcome.  It was this uncle, and my other uncle (who gave me the diary) that gave me most of my road-time as an early driver.  They had great patience with me.  As a result of their example, I myself was able to teach two other young people to drive.

On one of those drives we ventured up to Weston Priory in Vermont on a fine summer afternoon.   The grounds were lovely.  The buildings were, well, kind of barn-ish, rustic.  It fit for Vermont.  We walked around and intriguingly, saw no monks.  This was curious.  The monks had been pumping out records/cassettes for over a decade – most songs written by Gregory Norbet OSB – and here we were at their monastery and there was no sign of them.  My uncle went up to the window of a shed.  He balled up his fist and rubbed it in a circle on the window pane to get a better view inside.  My aunt chided him, “Dear, please!  What are you doing?”  He began, “I was looking to see if the pottery was here, from Brother Thomas, …. You know, I’m missing the World Series because we drove up here … and I don’t see monks anywhere (as if they were on exhibit?!)”  as the words came out of his mouth, a look of horror crossed his face: “they’re inside somewhere watching the World Series!”  My aunt had to think quickly to re-route his disappointment. She responded, “Dear.  Please.  I can tell you know nothing of the life of prayer and penance!”  He jokingly retorted, “Sure I do.  I married you!”  She gave him what I would classify as a “disparaging look.”  That was the end of that.  And we packed up and headed home.  Three months ago, I drove through Vermont and tried to find Weston Priory.  For some reason I could not, it was as if it had vanished off the face of the earth…. Or more likely, was tucked behind some mountain in Vermont.  Maybe some memories are best left in the past, but that one has always warmed my heart.

I am aware that each of us has our unique memories from the beautiful people that touch our lives.  I feel blessed beyond measure that she was godmother to me, because I know for a fact that her #1 priority was making sure my life was pointed in the right direction to get to heaven.  And in all of our restless human longings, is that not what the great ones before us have always taught us: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, oh Lord”?  The resting doesn’t mean the Eternal Rest of death; it means the resting of a soul filled with God’s Life – a soul that has no need to sell itself to a world that will give it less than God Himself has to offer.  My life was better, easier, happier because of what this amazing woman brought to the Table of Life.  Each of her family members were loved greatly – really, without measure – by her, and yet each in a unique way.  She prayed her socks-off for most of us.  I hope to God that we live in a way that is worthy of her, worthy of the Father in Heaven she devoted her whole life to, worthy in an unworthy and at times difficult world.

I will continue to write.  I will continue to think of her when I put the finishing touches on pieces that I compose.  I will remember all of the good, all of the love, all of the joy that she brought to me, to all of us.  And for that I will be forever grateful.

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ps. they are gardenia blossoms.

Breaking Grande Silence

 My time in the convent was brief, one weekend to be exact.  It was an experience of the intersection of two key things in my life:  1) my love for evangelizing teens at any opportunity; and 2) my dispositional tendency to follow rules ... until I can't.  It reminds me of that wistfully sad, yet important saying of the German monk Martin Luther:  "I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against my conscience is neither right nor safe.  Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.  Amen."

At the outset it would be important to remark that going to spend a weekend at a convent was not my idea.    I was in tenth grade.  I had the usual tendencies of tenth grade girls to love horses, read books, want to live by the ocean, and begin grand ideas with the phrase:  "Some day when I get married..."  I also happen to like God.  I don't just like Him as an idea, or an abstract concept.  I don't just Facebook "like" Him.  I don't like Him because when I sing the old song "Let there be peace on earth" I get misty-eyed of what that might be like.  I don't like Him because one of my parents was markedly "religious" and the other was not.  I like Him because somehow I felt like He had an interest in, well, me.  (I think He has an interest in you too, so don't feel left out.)  In one of his recent books, Author Matthew Kelly presents God as being the One Who can help us "become the very best version of ourselves."  I am sold on that concept that the One Who made us has a design for each of our lives.  The prophet Jeremiah said it best:

"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for your woe, plans to give you a future full of hope."  (Jeremiah 29:11)

What I did not like was the idea of going to a convent ... for ANY amount of time.  In my young brain, it had the hint of "clipping of the wings" and that held zero attraction to me. In no way, shape or form did I want to give my parents the idea that this would be an amenable life choice to me.  Yet every time we walked by the "Come and See Weekend" poster at church, my mother would continue to point it out to me.  She really pressed the issue so consistently that I went just to put a period at the end of the one word sentence:  "No."  Yes that contradicts logic.  And that is when the trouble began.  I will tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly, without telling you which order of sisters because that is kind of irrelevant to the point.

The weekend was held at the Mother House.  That is a very nice way of saying:  where you go through formation to ensure you and the Order are a good fit; and, also more to the point, where the elderly nuns go to die.  For my way of thinking, for me, they were one and the same experience.  At one point in the weekend, the Sister in charge of the young women "coming to see" took us to visit an elderly nun who was bed-ridden.  She sat up and smiled, took our hands and beamed.  She said, "I have had a beautiful life.  When are you girls coming to join us?"  I felt glad for her, but the last part caused the color to wash out of my face.  The directing Sister replied, "Oh, they are still in school; they can't come just yet," and we flowed out of the tiny room into the hallway that seemed to echo in its marbled floors my own footsteps that wanted to bolt right out the front door immediately.

The other interesting thing is that the other young women there were easily two or three years younger than me.  And frankly, they weren't doing a terrific job of discerning a future vocation.  They were quite obviously there for what felt like a reunion of girls from Massachusetts and Connecticut with the cache of girls from New Jersey.  It had the makings and feel of one giant Junior High Girls Slumber Party... albeit at a convent.  Although, there was one young woman among us who was actually college age and had just converted to Catholicism. She was planning to join the Order of sisters in a few months.  I would have liked to pick her brain a bit but she didn't seem to have time to speak with us, having bigger more spiritual fish to fry, I imagine.  

I got in trouble at lunch quite accidentally.  When I think back on it, I probably saw something that was much more interesting to me than what I had encountered so far.  Among the gathering of nuns in the lunchroom, everyone sitting around in their dark colored, knee length habits with matching veils on, there was one sister wearing all-white.  She was considerably younger, like in her 30's, and her round and warm Mexican face RADIATED joy.  I mean, when you see THAT you see something that could make you actually consider HER religious order:  doesn't every one of us want to be THAT happy?  So I just said what was on my mind to our Directress, "Who is that nun?"  Answer:  "She is traveling through and stayed the night with us."  My remark, "she is so beautiful."  The iced-cold stare I got back from the Directress led me to believe we were not on the same page when I was remarking about what was clearly a spiritually-generated beauty, a beauty that came from living in the center of God's love.  But I was inescapably in the dog house.  Bigger faux pas lay ahead for me.

It was in the convent that I learned how to play the card game "UNO."  And in case you are wondering what else happens in the convent on a Saturday night, I will break no code in telling you:  Some girls watched TV.  Back in the late 1970's ... they were watching Ricardo Montalban and his butler Tattoo welcome the rich, famous and desperate-for-love on the Fantasy Island that doesn't really exist go for a shot at their "one wish."  I could watch that at home, I think.  It seemed very, um, un-holy to be on a discernment retreat and not be discerning.  So, I busied myself about checking out the bookshelves.  I found a book called "Under the Fig Tree."  It was something that really resonated with me for some reason.  The title of the book came from Nathaniel encountering Jesus for the first time who greeted him with these words:  "I saw you under the fig tree.  You are a true son of Israel - there is no guile in you."  Every time I hear that Bible passage read in church I wonder what was happening under the fig tree that was worthy of note?  Was Nathaniel praying, crying, saying goodbye to someone, or doing absolutely nothing at all?  There was something about Jesus' remark about "seeing" him, that made me think it was a comprehensive-seeing, an "I get where you are coming from" sort of thing.  And to say that he had no guile in him was no compliment to the first man Israel, whose initial name was Jacob and was a deceiver.  (Hence the name of Robin Williams' movie years later:  Jakob the Liar.)  The comment by Jesus was honoring Nathaniel for his honesty and at the same time kind of saying, "you are unique in your family because you are honest" implying others are not.  Hmmm... 

So then we get to the part where a Directress tries to get junior high girls to call it a night.  Having done lock-in's with teens years later, I want to say to her credit at least she didn't really lose her temper with them.  We stayed in a large dorm-like room with a row of beds on each of the two sides of the room, and if I remember correctly, there may have been curtains that could pull around them like in the hospital Emergency Rooms on tv shows.  Somehow amidst the silly girl talk etc., I found an opportunity to get to talk to them about the Big Things God was doing in the Church in the last ten years (which was most of their lifetimes).  I talked about the Blessed Mother's apparitions.  I talked about the birth of the Catholic Charismatic renewal in the late 60's and what was happening in churches as far as healings and miracles occurring.  It was a prime time for evangelization - they were listening, I had the good news, I was regaling them on behalf of the Big G ...  and then I got in trouble.  The whole thing got shut down under the guise of the international convent rule of "Grande Silence."  

That's when a sister with the demeanor of a tired policeman comes to the edge of the dorm room and snaps, "Silence!  Please!"  I said, "But sister, don't you want to hear about this, how the Lord is working in people's lives ... healing them and ..."  "Girls.  Lights-out."  I guess she didn't want to hear it.  

I will say this after later having decades of experience with teen ministry:  Youth Ministry is not for those who have to keep strict rules or need their sleep.  At this point in my life, I'm not sure I could do it either.  But I will say this:  when the time is right and you have the proverbial floor and they are on-board with you, you've gotta let the Spirit lead and go with it.  It is the Inconvenient Moment in which the Lord chooses to change lives.  It is the moment after He sees you under the fig tree and there's nothing left but conversation and raw honesty and a heart turning to Him.  Nothing should ever stand in the way of that.  Not even Grande Silence.

My parents picked me up the next day from the Motherhouse.  My father shook the Sister Directress' hand and I could see him passing money to her.  Nice.  But I would have used an envelope.  LOL.  As we drove home I could see tears in his eyes.  I told him not to worry that I didn't plan to go back.  There was no further discussion.

My mother and I did have a discussion about five  years later that ended with me reiterating that convent life was not for me.  When I look at all the places my life and education and ministry have taken me, I understand better why it wasn't:

"You can only say 'No' when you have a bigger 'Yes' burning inside you."

But sometimes I have indeed wondered about the order that the Mexican nun belonged to and if I could ever find it... 

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