Moving away from civilisation – Take 2
Her thoughts gradually came back to the here and now as she looked up at the morning sun shining through the window high above the altar. It was getting brighter now, turning the coloured glass from black to brilliant red, progressing through the crimsons that she liked so much. She savoured the early morning mass in the chapel at this time of year. It was warm enough to concentrate on her internal life without being distracted by the shivering and goose bumps, in spite of the long johns and woolly vests she wore through the winter.. Father Flaherty gave the final blessing, intoned the dismissal and after he had processed to the rear of the chapel with the altar servers, Sister Mary and her fellow nuns slowly filed out of the chapel. They wandered down the stone flagged hallway to the dining hall where their breakfast awaited them, chattering like a squadron of sparrows after the long evening and night with no talking. Today it was porridge with a spoonful of honey and two slices of dry bread. In fact it was that every day, eternal, unchanging, just like the life of each nun in the convent.
It was a big day in the life of Sister Mary, she had been a novitiate nun here for three years and now was the day she had to decide whether to confirm her vows and so decide to continue here for the rest of her life or to return to the outside and make for herself what most people would call a normal life.
Mary, she never thought of herself as Sister Mary, enjoyed the life of the convent, the unchanging rituals, the simplicity, the hard work and, most of all, the time for the internal, contemplative life. She did not see the restrictions as irksome, she welcomed them. Some she delighted in. Working in the garden to grow the vegetables that they all depended on was one of her passions and the tiredness and muscle ache at the end of a hard day’s digging she welcomed as a sign of honest work, well done. The harvest and careful storage of the crops to see them through the long winters was one of the highlights of the year and something to give grateful thanks for. What about men? No, she preferred men to be like Father Flaherty, no temptation, no threat, just a sexless person in a frock. She exulted in the hardships, her simple barren cell with its thin, hard mattress on a wooden bed and cold stone floor, the early rising for the morning service and the long hours spent in the minimally heated chapel. Best of all was the Great Silence after Compline, through the evening and night until after morning service.. No idle chatter here, simple signs between the Sisters to indicate needs, questions and answers, no need to make conversation, just space and peace to fill with her own thoughts and meditations. Most of the Sisters looked forward to the one hour recreation period each evening before Compline when they were free to gather in the dining room, share a pot of tea and chat together about anything in shared companionship, mend their clothes or indulge in their hobbies which generally tended to be sewing crafts of some kind. Mary did not, she saw this as an intrusion into her internal life and could not easily join in with the banal chatter of the other nuns.
She had woken early this morning at three o’clock, an hour before she had to get up so she prepared to spend the hour looking back to her previous life ‘outside’. Would she miss it and did she really want to spend the rest of her life cooped up here, as outsiders would see it, behind these walls with no freedom, no decisions, no men, no family, working and worshipping until she died?
Her life before she entered the convent had been almost the exact opposite to her present. She had been an Account Manager for an engineering company, responsible for developing new business and catering to the whims of her customers. It had been a high pressure life, a lot of travelling around Europe, working very long and strange hours, catching flights at all times of the night and day. She attended meetings and gave presentations in foreign cities followed by dinners where she often had to play host to business men who did not speak English. She had horrific memories of a dinner in Warsaw in the Jan Sobieski Hotel where there had been a succession of vodka toasts to a successful deal before the meal even started. She had only just made the flight home the next morning after being sick in the hotel while rushing for the taxi. Her five year marriage to Michael had foundered on the twin pressures of her high octane working life and his lack of understanding. There was no blame on either side, they just amicably agreed to go their separate ways. She could, eventually see no point in staying in the job she was doing and so left in spite of the entreaties from her boss who saw difficulties in replacing her. She spent a year thinking about what to do and then applied to the Benedictine order to join one of their convents.
After these three years, she now knew that it was the life for her. She realised that she had never really accepted the culture that went with her previous work. She was happy and fulfilled here and so she decided without any equivocation to accept what her heart and head were telling her. At the meeting today with the Mother Superior she would tell her that she would like to spend the rest of her life with the order and would happily take her permanent vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
There was only one thing that she could not admit to the kindly Mother. She knew for an absolute certainty that there was no such thing as god and she liked it that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment