And Then There Were Nuns Read Online Free PDF Page B

urgent “Mayday!” commands as it scrambled for an answer. My heart rate sped up; a cold sweat beaded my forehead. I was ready to flee the room, but then the Voice Within floated serenely into the scene, silencing the sirens and the brain babble, firmly reassuring all assembled that my entire life had been leading me here. This is exactly where she should be.
    I relaxed and returned once more to Sister Elizabeth Ann.
    She was talking about orientation now, an appropriate subject for her, given that before entering religious life, she had worked as a forester. She loved the outdoors, particularly the wild regions of Northern Ontario, and she told us she was happiest and at her most peaceful when she was camping.
    â€œCamping” is not a word to which I respond positively, but Sister Elizabeth Ann’s description suddenly sent my thoughts back to the pilgrimage I had taken in Spain several years earlier on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela—I had met Colin there, in fact—where I had experienced the delicious freedom that comes from being without possessions, responsibility, and conformity, and where I came to understand that the more I tried to fit in with society, the more distant I became from my true self. And yet nothing says conformity more than a nunnery. What was I doing here?
    Orientation, Sister Elizabeth Ann continued, has both spiritual and practical connotations. As a noun, “orient” means “east”; as a verb, it means “face east.” She asked us to consider our presence in the program within that context: Were we here to root ourselves and prepare for a new journey, or were we here to focus on a faith that took root in the East?
    â€œAs you continue through this period of discernment, this challenge—because it is a challenge—keep in mind that silence is key so you can listen to God,” said Sister Elizabeth Ann. “We have a tendency to fill up God with our prayers, but we don’t give God time to speak back to us.”
    By listening deeply and earnestly, she said, we would be able to discern whether we were choosing God or whether God was choosing us. In the monastic life, you do not enter a monastery or convent on your own instruction but on God’s.
    â€œListening can instruct us, but it’s often hard out there,” she bowed her head toward the window where the light was streaming in, “to hear yourself think, let alone hear what God is saying.”
    We all nodded agreement.
    â€œPay attention to yourself. Life is about our willingness to change and take risks, and we get those cues from our hearts and our intuition. Likewise, and this is just as important, pay attention to your overreactions: when someone gets under your skin, ask yourself why that is. What have they stirred up? That can provide clues about who you are. To be true to yourself, you need to listen. As St. Augustine said, ‘Behold what you are; become what you see.’”
    Wow. A place that understood and practiced intuition, that spoke unabashedly about God, and that quoted the saints rather than a politician or a departmental head was exactly where I wanted to be. My enthusiasm and confidence surged again. I did not necessarily have to be Jane the Warrior Nun, but I could find a place among like-minded people and live out the rest of my days focusing on my faith and on concentrated prayer.
    I glanced around the circle at my fellow discerners. I got the sense that they were a lot like me: high achievers, hard on themselves, eager to mine the trenches of our nature to discover what it was that was missing in our lives; the wherefore and the why of this desperate longing within us. To get there, we would need to defrost that part of ourselves that had become frozen under an icy layer of distraction and disappointment.
    â€œAt the heart of discernment is the unmasking of your ego,” Sister Elizabeth Ann continued.
    We shifted uncomfortably in