Jan 6, 2016 |
By Sackcloth Dreams.
Recently, I was part of a discussion about theology students wearing the roman collar. One side said that seminarians shouldn’t wear the collar because it confuses people and they think a guy is a priest when he is not. But the former seminarian at the table explained how wearing the collar helped him feel more committed in his studies and the path he had embarked upon. It was interesting to hear.
The fact is, our bodies and our clothes matter, whether we like it or not. The outside reflects the interior, but our interior can also be shaped by our exterior. When I feel yucky in the morning, my initial reaction is to put on something comfortable and well-worn. I don’t want to put forth the energy to look nice. I want easy. But yet, if I stop myself and make the effort to look nice on the outside, it makes a difference in my attitude. There have been many days where I felt down but my usual clothes were in the laundry. As a result, I had to “dress up” because that was all I had. And it made a difference.
The day I entered the convent and changed into my postulant outfit was intense and most of it is a blur. But I do remember wanting to stand up tall and have proper posture to almost show respect to my new life and community, represented by my clothes. This feeling continued during my time there. My attire almost commanded me to carry myself a certain way.
When I returned to lay life, clothes were hard to come by. I don’t have sisters and I didn’t have any friends of the
same size/body type. As a result, I was given some ill-fitting clothes by people in order to get through and I used them for a long time (too long). I hate shopping with a passion and I didn’t have the money to get a new wardrobe. But I also didn’t feel like making the effort because I thought I wasn’t worth it. This created a cycle which I am still battling.
In “Searching for and Maintaining Peace” Fr. Jacques Philippe demonstrates the importance of the body and our actions. He says, “I should begin to strive to this peace in the easier situations of everyday life… to avoid excessive hurry in my gestures and the way I climb the stairs! The soul is often reeducated by the body!” (pg 82).
Haven’t we all experienced this? Don’t you pray differently when you are kneeling as opposed to sitting or lying down, for example? We have many times throughout our day when we sit, stand, lean, lie down, etc. But in Western culture we very rarely kneel or prostrate ourselves. This makes these postures meaningful. In regards to my surroundings, when I am in a beautiful church it is much easier to raise my mind to God. Furthermore, when I used to work in the Capitol I was often tempted to genuflect in the legislative chambers because the architecture was beautiful!
I had noticed this when thinking of postures in prayer, the beauty of a church and other more obviously “spiritual
matters” but I hadn’t ever thought about it in regards to my appearance. I am blessed to have a spiritual director who has been helping me grow and pray through my struggles with my exterior. He has constantly encouraged me to pray with these difficulties and be open and honest with the Lord. It is humbling to realize how much of our identity is wrapped up in our exterior. I tried to deny this reality for so long and now I am forced to surrender. It does matter.
So how about you? How did you feel about clothes? Was it hard to give up religious garb because it saved you from clothing decisions? Or did you immediately go to the trendiest store after returning and run up a big bill?
Dec 16, 2015 |
In July 2015, Aussie former-Dominican Bek Griffin embarked upon a journey across the Pacific to the USA where she visited other former religious sisters from a range of different States and communities and enjoyed some of the very best couch and futon accommodation that the “Land of the Free” and the “Home of the Brave” had to offer. The experience was both vacation and pilgrimage, both restorative and prayerful… and a heckuva lotta fun!! She shares this experience in the hope of inspiring others in post-convent transition to prayerfully consider responding to the unexpected manifestations of God’s love that bring healing and joy.
ex-Con: n. a former resident of a convent; a former member of a religious community.
<< Part 1: Called to vAcation
It’s one, big Catholic party in Denver – against the stunning backdrop of God’s Gallery
A whimsical snapshot taken in Denver. Simple, seemingly insignificant beauty.
Now I didn’t mention it in Part 1 of my excellent adventure, but I had an unexpected travel-buddy who made the entire journey with me. St Therese was there every time I turned around. Now when I was a sister, my name had been Sr Catherine Therese, and I celebrated my feast day on October 1, the feast of the Little Flower. (That name now belongs to another sister in my former community whom I’ve never met – if you have a moment I’d invite you to pause in your reading and offer an Ave for her! Although I don’t know her, by virtue of the name and shared patronesses, I feel we are indeed sisters and I’ve adopted her in prayer!)
I thought the gold detail over the door at St Catherine’s (Denver) was exquisite.
Ah. Where were we? Yes. My uninvited but very welcome travel companion was none other than St Therese. She was there in a beautiful basilica shrine in San Antonio, and there was a beautiful statue of her at Holy Ghost parish, too! Imagine my surprise then, when attending the patronal church of my other special saintly friend, St Catherine of Siena, I was presented with yet another statue of St Therese, hanging out at the same church as Catherine!! I can’t really explain my excitement, but I almost felt as if I found a true spiritual home, there. Before I knew what a special and beautiful church St Catherine of Siena would turn out to be, I already had a special interest in it. You see, the custodians of the parish are the Community of the Beatitudes, the community to which the well-known retreat master Fr Jacques Philippe belongs. I was privileged to attend a retreat under his direction almost a year ago, en Francais but with the assistance of a sister who translated for us. The retreat changed me profoundly, and I was interested to know more of their community. It was wonderful to be able to attend Mass at their parish with several sisters and lay members of the community present.
Y’all have bizarre road signs in CO! I THOUGHT this was a moose, but I’ve since been informed it’s actually an elk…
Denver is the home of five of my former sisters, and it was such a delight to meet up with all of them there! I was only in Denver for a couple of days, and it was an absolute whirlwind… we sure managed to cram a lot into very little time! 3 of them were from the same group with whom I entered; 1 was from the group ahead, and 1 from the group after.
Surrounded by the kind of mountainous beauty for which Denver is so famous, I would have been crazy if time had not been spent outdoors, and one of my former-sisters is a climbing enthusiast, so she, another former-sister (my amazing and generous hostess) and I decided to picnic somewhere where we could enjoy some of the pretty views. It was perhaps the most still and relaxed time in the whole Denver part of the trip, on a gorgeous, temperate Summer’s day.
I was blessed to visit some simply beautiful churches. Now I know the churches in the United States don’t have quite the same history and old-world charm of the churches I hope to one day see in Europe, but you American readers ought to know that you are nevertheless blessed with beautiful places of worship. I was struck during my visit by how impoverished we are back home in Australia, when it comes to beautiful prayer spaces that truly raise the mind to the Lord. The two churches in which I got to attend Mass in Denver were Holy Ghost Parish downtown, and St Catherine of Siena parish.
Expansive views that surely raise the mind to God! This is taken from our picnic site at Red Rock.
We strolled downtown and I bought a dark-chocolate coated, caramel-dipped Oreo… the land in which devices such as the telephone, the lightbulb and the iPod were invented did not disappoint with culinary innovation, I can tell you!
I visited the shrine of St Frances Cabrini and drank from the springs there.
I even checked out the burial site of Buffalo Bill. Don’t judge me :)
Yes. I’m a tourist and I own it!
The Shrine of St Therese on a little almost-island just outside of Juneau, AK. Idyllic setting!
Once again – the highlight was the quality time spent with my sisters in Christ, with my sisters in post-convent-transition. We spoke a little about the transition, and that was helpful… to really cement the reality that while the details and directions we take are different, there are just some universal realities to transition that we all experienced… and that none of us were alone. It was good to talk about it all. Having said that, though, most of our discussion wasn’t about convent, or even about post-convent processing. Most of our discussion was just about… LIFE. And that felt good and healthy :)
My next stop was Juneau, Alaska. Similarly beautiful, similarly mountainous… and similarly stalked by St Therese! A dear friend of mine moved there for her first post-convent job and as remote as it was, I just HAD to visit her. We share a special bond, this friend and I – my novice mistress granted special permission for me to say goodbye to this particular sister when I left the community, and that was such an amazing gift! I did touristy things and fell in love with a lot of the local art (and was a little naughty and splashed out on some of it as some was quite reasonably priced!) I spent time just BEING with this friend. We sampled local food together, we took the tram to the top of the mountain to eat at a restaurant with goatskins and bearskins and
The pieta, nestled in quite a stunning garden near the Shrine of St Therese at Juneau.
antlers and animal heads all over the walls (which might be normal in the US but was super novel to me!) We talked a bit about how mutual friends are doing, about work, about convent, about life… but we can both be kind of introverted at times, and so we weren’t super chatty all of the time.
We just hung out. We went on a short hike, visited a GORGEOUS Shrine of St Therese on a little island, sampled the late Princess Diana’s favourite tea at a local teahouse (random!), checked out glaciers and waterfalls, wandered the quaint little streets… even watched a little TV together. That felt good and healthy, too!
It was to be at my NEXT stop, in Michigan, where I would met in person a number of board members, volunteers and benefactors of Leonie’s Longing… a tale I will share in the next and final instalment of “Couch-Surfing with ex-Cons“!
Finally – it would be remiss of me in the wake of the recent #thanksconvent initiative, not to express my gratitude to the Lord for the friendships I made in the convent, for the friendships I’ve maintained since the convent, and for the new friends I’ve gained in post-convent life as a direct result of having lived that experience! Deo gratias, and #thanksconvent!
Nov 4, 2015 |
In July 2015, Aussie former-Dominican Bek Griffin embarked upon a journey across the Pacific to the USA where she visited other former religious sisters from a range of different States and communities and enjoyed some of the very best couch and futon accommodation that the “Land of the Free” and the “Home of the Brave” had to offer. The experience was both vacation and pilgrimage, both restorative and prayerful… and a heckuva lotta fun!! She shares this experience in the hope of inspiring others in post-convent transition to prayerfully consider responding to the unexpected manifestations of God’s love that bring healing and joy.
ex-Con: n. a former resident of a convent; a former member of a religious community.
Called to vAcation: permission to be joyful!
When we enter religious life, we give the Lord our unconditional “yes” to whatever He may ask of us for the entire remainder of our lives. For those of us who leave and return to the world, this doesn’t cease to be the case. Rather, it takes on a radically different appearance to that which we thought it would. My act of returning to the world after a year and a half in community was fundamentally in continuity with that very first “yes” I gave the Lord in May of 2010 when, praying the 10th Station alone in a candle-lit chapel I responded to the totality of the Lord’s gift with my own offering of my life to Him – small in comparison to His infinite gift, but the very best I had to give, and in some way, pleasing to His loving and adorable Heart.
My act of returning home was a step forward in raw trust, a deep conviction that He was calling me out not as a rejection, but as a positive thing with a definite purpose… and so I took my step forward into the dark, and like Peter walking on water towards Jesus, my trust faltered at a certain point. I flailed and stumbled and found myself over my head amidst wild waves that served as a foil to show up my lack of faith.
My first mistake was to forget that I was not alone, to rely upon my own resources. After returning home, I was determined NOT to “sponge” off the charity of others for longer than necessary (a.k.a. I succumbed to pride.) I put a great deal of pressure on myself to find employment and to become equipped to pull my weight financially. While the intention was to take responsibility for myself and to minimise the impact that my unexpected transition had on those I loved, the impact to ME was that I forgot, for a little while, just how much the Lord loves me! Life took on a bleak and burdensome flavour and this made my interior post-convent processing that much harder. I threw myself into work, and in a stunning act of kamikaze madness, undertook also to complete in the space of about 10 months another Masters degree in my “spare time.” Full-time work and full-time study whilst still maintaining one’s responsibility to be present to one’s family means that, even when you DO uncompromisingly schedule prayer time for the Lord, you don’t have a whole lot of energy left to give to Him! He gets time… but not necessarily quality time. I was aware of my thirst for Him… and yet did not allow room in my life to frequently approach the Well from whence Living Water can be drawn. Occasional bursts of mercifully gifted fervour kept a little flame alive… just.
It’s the battle we all face, I suppose, out here in the world. And yet as we stumble in the dark, our Kindly Light is ever there to lead us on, if only we dare to trust and follow. I made a resolution for the new year. I would build back into my life the pattern of daily mental prayer that I lost when I left community life. It HAD to work – it was at His invitation, after all. It would happen by His Grace.
So it was some 18 months after returning to the world that I found myself in my third post-convent job, a little more stable and lucrative than those prior. Prayer was a more fruitful fixture in my life than it had previously been. Further, I belonged to an international community of women who loved the Lord intensely and were each seeking out ways to serve Him and share His Love with others – I had been in communication with a number of other women who had similarly left my former community, as well as a number of active members of Leonie’s Longing for some time. I realised that these were firm and worthwhile friendships – wonderful gifts! Over a period of about six months, the idea of travelling to the United States to visit some of these friends kept coming up in conversation and even in my dreams. I considered my options and my budget and realised that such a trip would be feasible if I saved carefully… could it be possible that the Lord actually actively wanted me to take a vacation?
It can be so easy, falling prey to my pride, to seek fulfilment in achievement. My academic pursuits left me wide open to this. Nevertheless, in moments of uncharacteristic clarity, I find myself wondering why I don’t just get out of my own way and let the Lord fulfil me!!
Somehow on this occasion I did exactly that. I listened to Him. I got out of my own way. I spoke to my friends and found out which of them would be happy to host me for portions of my adventure… and then I booked flights till my hip pocket could barely handle it anymore. Four very dear and generous friends with a whole lotta God-given love in their heart… and all He was asking me to do was let them love me – to let Him love me.
Things fell into place. My application for a month of vacation time at work was approved without incident. My travel preparations were unimpeded. I got on my flight and some 24 hours later I was hugging a dear friend I hadn’t seen in years! She and I had become very close while in community together; she entered about a year before I did, and left about a year before I did, and our time in the community only overlapped by 6 months. Now here we both were – her a teacher, me an IT professional in the education sector – let loose in the world!! As we road-tripped Texas together, I made the comment to her that seeing her in this new context… ordinary life… and just spending time with her and doing regular things… it somehow really affirmed for me on an interior level my decision to return to the world. There are many trials and dangers associated with no longer having the walls of the convent and the horarium and my religious community – but there are many joys and beautiful things to be experienced, too!
The purpose of my visit to Texas was purely and simply to spend quality time with my very dear friend.
Mission accomplished. Definitely. And that was the absolute highlight of my Texas leg of the trip.
Portrait of St Therese by her sister, Celine
It wasn’t all about staying in and eating icecream and catching up, though. Some of the secondary highlights included:
- meeting HEAPS of awesome, beautiful, hospitable people!!
- visiting the Basilica Shrine of St Therese of Lisieux in San Antonio and seeing the larger-than-life original of the portrait of Therese painted by her sister Celine
- being introduced to Tex Mex
- being told, in Texan drawl ” You’re in ‘Merica – you can do whatever you want!”
Cactus+Beer? I LOVE America!
- discovering the delights of Prickly Pear flavoured beer (whod’ve thunk?)
- kayaking in downtown Houston (I kid you not!)
- checking out the NASA Space Center
- checking out the Alamo
- Museum of Fine Arts in Houston
- finding the little hole-in-the-wall coffee joints that know how to serve up a “Flat White” just as well as any barista in Sydney
- rediscovering the much-missed comfort-food and friendly atmosphere of Chik-fil-A… we SO need this chain to open franchises in my country!
- playing chicken with traffic to get a photograph at the site of the Kennedy assassination
- discovering an awesome breakfast innovation that hasn’t yet taken Australia by storm: the Nest Egg… genius. Pure genius.
- enjoying the generous hospitality of a Venezeulan family who had never met me, didn’t know me, spoke in a different language to me but opened up their home and fed me delicious arepas!
Groovin’ at the Grassy Knoll
Next Stop: Denver, CO>>
(Stay tuned: part two of Bek’s journey will be published on Thursday December 10th!)
Sep 30, 2015 |
Ever seen Kung Fu Panda?
I watched the movie with my postulant class and felt at the time like it pretty much described our early religious experience. Rigorous training and self-discovery were on the menu, served up with bok choy and steaming, hot rice. It got me thinking about what it is to prepare oneself for a life of service to Him. The Ignatian idea of soldiers for Christ comes to mind here. The similarities between military and religious life are manifold, after all:
– Early mornings.
– Obedience to Superiors.
– Intense discipline.
– Frequent exhaustion.
– Detailed schedule.
– Ordered sleeping quarters.
– Standard issue clothing.
– B-grade coffee **grin**
Even the standing, sitting, following in the breviary and bowing in unison of praying the Office together is somewhat analogous to the experience of ceremonial drill with synchronised marching and weapon handling.
By way of further illustration, allow me to share my own personal occasion of deja vu.
People had been murmuring all afternoon, you see. It was rumoured that there would be a midnight training exercise. We had been moved out of the Officer’s quarters for that evening, which was unusual. We were shifted to the enlisted flats. Unusual just doesn’t happen in the military. Routine happens. Predictability happens. People are squared away.
Instinct told me to go to bed partially dressed, and it is just as well that I did. At approximately 3.30am the following morning, the peal of an aluminium whistle simultaneously sounded with the thud of a shoe being whacked against the door of my quarters. We were ordered to report downstairs on the grass outside the flats, in full DPCUs (disruptive pattern camouflage uniforms) but with our running shoes instead of our boots, formed up in rank and file. Initially I congratulated myself. I was almost completely dressed – I only had to pull on and button up my camouflage shirt and pull my shoes on… wait… what shoes? I had my boots, but not my running shoes. My running shoes were in the trunk of my car, parked downstairs outside the flats.
I grabbed my car key and ran like a mad thing in bare feet out onto the dew-kissed grass to grab my shoes. I ran to my place in the line, secured my car key in a cargo pocket and managed to get one shoe on before time was up. It was mostly dark, and I put the other shoe on the ground partially on top of my unshod foot as we stood to attention and listened to the Warrant Officer brief us on the exercise that was about to take place. I played it cool and counted on poor visibility and the hope that an inspection would not take place to survive the next 5 minutes… and was grateful when we were given a minute between the briefing and the commencement of our first task, which was enough time to get the shoe on. My failure to be properly prepared had miraculously flown under the radar that morning. What followed was a “character building” road run of many miles, where we were required to drop to the side of the road every few miles to do pushups, where our hands held the curb, but our bodies had to go down a further 6 inches lower than the level of our hands in order to allow our noses to brush the asphalt. Such was the cruel creativity of our task masters. We were then required to travel a certain distance in walking lunges before teaming up with a fellow Officer Cadet and retrieving, in pairs, heavy ammunition boxes with the objective of getting them from one side of a deep water obstacle to another. All in all, these torments continued for approximately 90 minutes, at which point we were given leave to shower and get ourselves to the Officer’s Mess for a well-earned breakfast and some liquid gold.
Fast forward some 4 years.
I had been wearing a uniform of a very different kind for approximately 2 weeks. I was now a baby postulant.
At approximately 1.15am, the morning bell rang. I woke and groggily looked at my clock. Seeing the time, I was quite sure it was just a dream and I turned back over in my bed and went back to sleep. Meanwhile, more savvy and obedient sisters than I were dressing in the neighbouring cells, despite the hour. Rushing between cells and bathrooms transpired over the few minutes that followed before the message made it around the dorms that we were to go back to bed. Suffice it to say that rising at 5am after the drama a few hours earlier was… “sanctifying.”
After breakfast the following morning all novitiate sisters were asked to meet in the Community Room where the Novice Mistress addressed us to debrief the incident of the night before. It so happened that a sister who often struggled to wake to an alarm or a bell was responsible for ringing the bells that week to regulate the horarium. Her anxiety had been building over the course of the week, so determined was she to do her duties well for love of her sisters. She woke in the middle of the night, panicked and thought she had missed the time that she was supposed to ring the bell to wake the house, pulled on her slippers and her robe and ran out to ring the bell, not realising that we were still entitled to a further 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep. Seasoned by my prior military experience, and skeptical about the explanation we had just been offered, I raised my hand and when the Novice Mistress called upon me, asked her directly in front of the rest of the novitiate: “Sister – are we being hazed?”
You can imagine the laughter that ensued.
Anecdotes aside, where is the point of distinction between “character building” and “sanctifying” ?? What makes two types of life with so many shared experiences remain so radically different in character??
I think the answer resides in a fascinating tension between love and duty, between glorification of God and glorification of self.
In my experience there is a sort of perfectionistic quality about the typical military officer, more pronounced in some than in others, coexisting with a desire to serve. The typical officer takes great pride in a polished appearance, in elite physical conditioning and in finely honed discipline. The typical officer seeks to be better, faster, stronger, smarter, more courageous… because the life of self and of others may depend upon that one day. This need not lack virtue if ordered correctly under God, but often this is not the case. Ordering one’s betterment within the framework of God’s plan and created order is certainly not the focal point of the training, that is for sure! Duty is the fulcrum and assiduous training the lever as the officer aspires to be propelled toward a successful military career. Duty. Training. Discipline. Courage. Loyalty. These are all good things, but at the service of oneself they are sold short!
There is, however, a good that is objectively higher: love.
There are still temptations in religious formation to want to glorify self, temptations to a disordered perfectionism that quite simply kills the love between sisters and bears no fruit. Yet opportunities abound to grow in love, and the community construct is uniquely fitted to the task of helping to motivate sisters to authentically love and to serve rather than to simply to better one’s capability. The eternal life of self and others may depend on that predisposition to love and serve in response to His grace, one day!
As one grows in obedience and self-knowledge, (perhaps without the bok choy and rice,) one learns to live by the dictum I first heard from my Postulant Mistress:
“Do the best that you can with the time you have for the love of God.”
My former superior used to speak of religious life as a school of love… but isn’t ALL of life that, really? Novitiate was like LOVE101. Back out here, in the world, amidst family, friends and coworkers? I feel like it’s just an extension of that other school of love – definitely the intermediate class!
So what has this former Air Force Officer learned so far?
I’m just a little one.
I don’t have to be better, faster, stronger, smarter or more courageous, as good as all of those qualities are.
All I need to do is learn to love in response to Love.
by Bek.
Sep 30, 2015 |
By AfterEpiphany.
St Therese of Lisieux, when pondering the symbolism of the garden for which she has become so famous, wrote that she realised that we couldn’t all be roses and lilies. She personally identified more with a smaller, less significant flower, and she discovered beauty in being that flower rather than some of the others she had once longed to be.
The Little Way of St Therese is indeed a message of comfort to we former sisters, if only one can get past the contempt that comes with an over-familiarity with the general notion of The Little Way, and actually embrace it and live it.
In my former community I celebrated my feast day on the 1st of October and St Therese of Lisieux was my personal patroness. Anyone who knows me well knows that I tend to gravitate towards grand plans and big ideas… I really need a saint like Therese praying for me, teaching me to be who I am and flourish as such in the Father’s Garden!
Once, I dreamed I’d be a religious sister and I hoped I’d be a holy one. I longed to be a saint. I longed for union with God. I felt convinced that He had called me to be a garden enclosed – His sister, His bride. Some years on, I find that I am NOT a religious sister, nor am I holy – neither lily, nor rose, much less that garden enclosed. I still long to be a saint, and I still long for union with God… and thanks be to Him that through the life and witness of St Therese He has shown me that there is still a way… albeit a little way.
As I learn to live The Little Way out here in my “post-convent” reality, the 1st of October is still special to me.
I celebrate it almost as if it were my birthday… because any excuse for a party will do… but more seriously, because the day still has a significance that I can’t quite articulate. Unless you’re a close friend or family member, you may not notice anything different about the way I go about my day. OK… so I generally eat “solemnity food” (i.e. I indulge in sugar just a little bit), and if there are lunchtime meetings that interfere with my Mass plans, guess which one wins? I have a picture of St Therese in a cardboard frame that I received from one of my former sisters on the day I received the habit… I’ve kept that picture and it receives pride of place in my “prayer corner” on October 1st. I still think of it as “my feast day” and I still consider it a day to “ask big” with a trust in the Father so characteristic of St Therese… through her intercession. I pray in a special way for all my former sisters who shared that feast day.
All of these external things are so little… so little… but they help to make the day special internally. My friendship with St Therese has been such an important feature of my post-convent healing. She has been such a faithful friend and has helped to keep the lines of communication open with our Heavenly Father when my heart was hurting most and I was tempted to turn away.
I don’t know how successful this would be, but I’d love to open up some discussion here in the comments below, among you, the Leonie’s Longing readers. We’re a community, after all, and we share a life experience that unites us in Him. Each one of us once longed to be a part of that garden enclosed… perhaps lily, perhaps rose. Some of you will have been in religious life long enough to have had a religious name and/or feast day. Those of you who returned home before receiving a name, or who belonged to communities that retained Baptismal names, may still have had a particular saint you considered your patron. And so I ask you.. do YOU still celebrate your “feast day”? If so, how do YOU make it a special day?
This October 1st, my feast day, I will again “ask big” – this time for each of you, my sisters in Him.
Sep 3, 2015 |
aka the Should Syndrome.
By Grace.
Transition TimeLion
noun: The anxious/nagging/unsettled/perturbed feeling that arises when one experiences tension between current reality and where they think they ought to be
synonym: “Should Syndrome”, examples may include:
I should be ready for a job. I should be ready to date. I should be ready to go out with friends on a Friday night. I should be able to pray like I used to. I should be able to stop crying. I should be ok with shopping in stores or being out in large crowds.
Taming the Transition Time(line)lion and, consequently, Should Syndrome is no small feat. Often it rears its roaring head or utters its almost inaudible growls at the most inopportune times. This concept is in no way specific to the unique experience of transitioning from religious life to the lay state. Those who are going through the process of grieving a loved one’s death experience this, stay at home moms as the size of their family increases, those who struggle with infertility, professionals changing jobs or careers; all experience this phenomenon at some point in their life. The focus of this little reflection, however, will be directed toward the specifics of what you and I have been uniquely called to – continuing our relationship with God after discerning a different path to Heaven outside of religious life.
Three years later, with some time to process and a bit of distance, I offer these thoughts. In the early days after leaving the community I discerned with, almost every moment was a reminder that I wasn’t there. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of the sisters, that I didn’t have dreams that I was supposed to be in habit and wasn’t and that while there was great freedom without an horarium, being devoid of any schedule was ultimately offsetting. The only prayer I could utter for months was simply the name of Jesus. The mere sight of a Breviary broke my heart in two and the Transition TimeLion growled, “It’s been 6 months already, I should feel more stable than I do. I need to re-enter the workforce, but I feel incapable of entering the previous career I had. Surely, I should be ready by now.”
The interesting thing I found with the Transition TimeLion is that the expectations I felt pressured by or the things I felt I ought to be doing were not coming from anyone other than myself. I was the one disregarding the need of my heart that simply called for time and space to transition. The roaring and growling were insecurities that arose because I felt uncomfortable in this place of utter vulnerability that I had never encountered before. I wanted out! I wanted the fog to lift and the heartache and the unknowing to be over. However, this was an invitation to something deeper, to a new stage of my relationship with the Lord – to suffer being patient with myself. To trust, truly trust, that He has my greatest good at heart. I often am not able to see it in the moment, but those grueling, agonizing moments are the “stuff” of redemption. So are the moments of great joy and peace that follow.
Many times in the last three years, the TimeLion has appeared and reappeared in my life. So, what does one do in these moments and how does one tame this creature? I offer only the aids I have come to know through personal experience. You perhaps also have insightful wisdom which I welcome you to share for the Timelion can be tamed in a multitude of ways.
- Laugh. Yes, even if it is a forced laugh. I envision Beast from Beauty and the Beast when he is getting gussied up for his dinner with Belle and dons ridiculous curls with bows as one of the possible hair do’s. Puts the whole roaring lion of the interior life into perspective.
- Enter into beauty. Beauty allows us to encounter new aspects of our Creator that surprise us and almost immediately lift the soul, in delight, out of itself. Beauty will look different for each of us (and our Creator knows that). For some it will be a majestic sunset over the mountains, for others the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, the giggle of a niece or nephew or a blossoming wild flower we unexpectedly encounter on our path. Whatever it is, He created it for you.
- Recreate. I apologize if even the sight of this term we encountered in religious life makes you cringe, but stick with me. Engage in activities you loved doing before you entered religious life and do them just for the sake of doing them (and because you can). Paint, play your musical instrument, go for a run, canoe, drink a cup of coffee while you’re getting ready in the morning. Utilize some of those new gifts/skills you learned in religious life for fun now. I learned to sew and now thoroughly enjoy making all of my niece’s gifts by hand.
- Trust. God has never been, is not now and will never be in crisis about your vocation. All of what He allows us to experience in this transition is part of Plan A. There isn’t a Plan B. It is not the case that we discerned incorrectly or failed. In fact, this discernment was actually successful despite the possible feeling that the Lord duped us (and perhaps, like me, you let yourself be duped). He loves us infinitely and has given us a particular grace specific to only those who transition from religious life to lay life. There will be a time and a place when He reveals the details of our vocation to us, but for now, He is simply calling each of us more closely to Himself.
So, when the Transition TimeLion begins to roar, know that you are already infinitely loved by the Triune God who loved you into existence and desires to be in relationship with you regardless of how quickly you get back on your feet, what you do or don’t do, achieve or don’t achieve. Let us rest a bit, be gentle with our hearts and take our time discovering who we are in the eyes of the Father.
same size/body type. As a result, I was given some ill-fitting clothes by people in order to get through and I used them for a long time (too long). I hate shopping with a passion and I didn’t have the money to get a new wardrobe. But I also didn’t feel like making the effort because I thought I wasn’t worth it. This created a cycle which I am still battling.
matters” but I hadn’t ever thought about it in regards to my appearance. I am blessed to have a spiritual director who has been helping me grow and pray through my struggles with my exterior. He has constantly encouraged me to pray with these difficulties and be open and honest with the Lord. It is humbling to realize how much of our identity is wrapped up in our exterior. I tried to deny this reality for so long and now I am forced to surrender. It does matter.
Ever seen Kung Fu Panda?
Instinct told me to go to bed partially dressed, and it is just as well that I did. At approximately 3.30am the following morning, the peal of an aluminium whistle simultaneously sounded with the thud of a shoe being whacked against the door of my quarters. We were ordered to report downstairs on the grass outside the flats, in full DPCUs (disruptive pattern camouflage uniforms) but with our running shoes instead of our boots, formed up in rank and file. Initially I congratulated myself. I was almost completely dressed – I only had to pull on and button up my camouflage shirt and pull my shoes on… wait… what shoes? I had my boots, but not my running shoes. My running shoes were in the trunk of my car, parked downstairs outside the flats.
Mistress addressed us to debrief the incident of the night before. It so happened that a sister who often struggled to wake to an alarm or a bell was responsible for ringing the bells that week to regulate the horarium. Her anxiety had been building over the course of the week, so determined was she to do her duties well for love of her sisters. She woke in the middle of the night, panicked and thought she had missed the time that she was supposed to ring the bell to wake the house, pulled on her slippers and her robe and ran out to ring the bell, not realising that we were still entitled to a further 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep. Seasoned by my prior military experience, and skeptical about the explanation we had just been offered, I raised my hand and when the Novice Mistress called upon me, asked her directly in front of the rest of the novitiate: “Sister – are we being hazed?”
By AfterEpiphany.
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