The New beginning after the life of the Monastery

After almost 30 years of living as a Roman Catholic, enclosed, contemplative Carmelite nun in the United Kingdom, I returned 2 ½ years ago at the age of 71 to ‘the world’. After a long period of discernment our small monastery in rural England had closed. I had been the Prioress of the community throughout the process and I was exhausted, drained - so though I should have gone immediately to another community of the same Order, I asked for time to rest and to ponder my future. For some reason which I could not then articulate, I was not ready simply to move to another monastery. I needed some emotional and even physical distance, so I returned for this time to my home country of Canada where I had friends and family and a place to stay.

For a few months I found myself to be too tired to do more than just survive. I slept, I walked by the lake, I visited with friends. I was certainly not able to examine my questions in any kind of depth. I know, however, that they were just below the surface, rising to almost-consciousness especially in the early morning and late evening hours when one's mind seems to hover between two worlds. Right from the beginning though, I realized that what I was facing was the possibility that I could not or would not go back to my religious life. And yet, this seemed like such an impossible choice to make.

The questions were serious: why would I make such a huge change at such an advanced and vulnerable age? How was I going to assess what precisely had changed so much that I was now asking whether I could any longer live a vocation I believed for years that I had been called to ? Was I doing the 'right' thing? Was there a 'right' thing? I had made solemn vows to remain a nun for my whole life; wouldn't it be a bit like breaking up a marriage by seeking a divorce? Was I betraying God? Was I betraying my sisters who remained deeply committed to this way of life and to whom I was committed in community?

In time I was able to begin to articulate and understand what it was that I was facing. The essence of my dilemma had nothing to do with how I felt about my vocation and everything to do with how I was feeling about my church. What then had I experienced in those 30 years that had begun to make it seem impossible to return to my monastic life?

I had been born into the United Church of Canada, a large, moderate Protestant denomination, and had remained a fairly faithful member of that church until in my thirties I became attracted to the excitement and renewal that was happening to the Roman Catholic church as a result of Vatican Council II. I had always had a drawing to the richness of the Catholic church and to its structure – which I needed. I chose to become a Catholic at the end of the '60's and found myself in a life-giving and spiritually alive revival. Anything seemed possible and there was, in my circles at least, a ferment of social justice activities and spiritual enrichment. I was particularly caught by the tremendous power of the retreats given by Jean Vanier, the founder of l'Arche. L'Arche is a movement which is built upon small communities of men and women, some of whom are mentally disabled, who lived together as a witness to the amazing gifts and value of every human person. Jean spoke of Jesus and his love for each of us in a way that I had never heard before and I was profoundly touched.

In 1972 I went with a friend to India to visit Mother Teresa and several of the l'Arche communities there. That trip changed my life and helped to lead me to give up my work and in 1973 to go to live at Daybreak, the first Canadian l'Arche community just north of Toronto. After a year there I was offered the chance to open a new community in Burnaby, British Columbia and remained there until I entered Carmel. All during that time we were experiencing what I now see as the best of Vatican II.

In 1979 I left my l'Arche community in Vancouver and went to England to begin life as an enclosed, contemplative sister having been drawn slowly and quietly by the desire to live a simpler, more contemplative life; somehow to dive more deeply into the heart of the world and stay there praying and growing, I hoped, in love. As I was moving in that direction however, though I didn't see it for some years, my church was slowly taking back the gains of Vatican II and retrenching, becoming a church I had never experienced. So I see now that as I grew in one direction, my church was turning in another. I found myself wanting to become more vocal in my unhappiness but I was living in a community that I loved and in a vocation that I loved and I did not wish to speak too much or too loudly. Because it was a community that knew me so well, I felt no desire or need to leave. I know even now that, had our monastery not closed I would not have left. It was being faced with the reality of closure and the need to choose another community that confronted me with my questions in a new and much more challenging way.

The closure of communities is, sadly, not all that uncommon these days, because there are few new vocations and the sisters who are already there, are aging. This is true in almost all of the European and North American communities. There are some that are thriving but they are very much the exception.

Once back in Canada where it seemed more possible to weigh the options before me I began to see that if I returned to my new monastery I could, in my deep unhappiness with a church I had once chosen and loved, become an unhappy influence. For the 8 years before our monastery's closure, I had been on the Council of British Carmels and I knew and had visited almost every monastery in the U.K. I could not see any community, however loving, that would be able to live with my questions and, sometimes, with my anger. I was feeling too strongly and I knew I did not want to be silent. What I was feeling seemed like a systemic betrayal of the Gospel message of Jesus and of the 'fresh air' of Vatican II by the institutional church . In my view, that betrayal could deprive us all of much of the compassion, love and simplicity that I believed were God's desire for us. Over the years of pondering and praying, I had myself, experienced the loving gospel message of Jesus, I knew something of what a gift it is.

I know it is not enough just to be negative about something . So I also did my best to ponder what it was that I wanted from my church. I could picture at the very simplest level of what I want, some kind of sign of at least a will to struggle to be an inclusive, compassionate, listening church, free to keep growing according to the mind of Christ that we see in the gospels and in so many ways at Vatican II. Something more life-giving than condemnation and fear is needed. This more open spirit would I believe, make any church the healing and loving presence of Christ in our world.

I know that any institution will have the tendency over time to grow rigid and fearful. The fear, it seems, produces a tendency towards control and a use of power which can be inimical to life. I know that we humans do continually struggle with our fears and our need for control, so I am not speaking about a church that is perfect. What I hope for however, is a church that tries to live the pattern of life and relationships to others that Jesus lived. I believe too that the vital gift that Jesus gives us to do this is the power of the Spirit which helps us to be him, to be his very presence in our world. We can try to be people who listen, who are free, who respect the questions and concerns of the men and women we meet and who change as we listen. Jesus' life, his choice of friendship rather than power provides, it seems to me, a life-giving model for our lives and the life of the church. This is what I am not able to see at the moment, in the institutional Roman Catholic church.

It may seem naive to be expecting this large, complex and centuries old institution to be so simple. After all through those centuries many wise and well educated men

(no women so far as I know) have articulated doctrines and dogmas and liturgical rubrics which they believed to be in accord with Jesus' intentions . In the early church men met in councils and defined beliefs in the face of perceived heresies and challenges. Somehow these councils and the men who became known as the 'Fathers of the church' became the defining voices in the evolution of our faith. Since then, it seems that those definitions and understandings have become in some sense, carved in stone. In my experience, new insights, changing cultural patterns and growth in human knowledge of our world have not been allowed in any serious way to influence what or how we are asked to believe and live in this 21^st century.

There are needless to say, many wonderful, wise and good men and women in the church. These include scholars, pastors, spiritual leaders and guides and men and women living out their ordinary daily lives who struggle to be heard through the wall of fear that is currently in place at the institutional level. These men and women struggle still to nourish and empower the people of God and to keep the Gospel alive. But these days, such good people are not offered much room to speak, either spiritually or intellectually and are far too often silenced or criticized.

There are many examples of the specific kinds of things I find to be distressing. Several of the more egregious ones include: the refusal of the hierarchy to discuss the ordination of women to the priesthood, the activity (or lack of it) of the Bishops with regard to the sexual abuse scandals, the absolute rigidity of understanding the definition of what is a life especially as it relates to abortion and the refusal to recognize the God-given nature and humanity of various sexual orientations. Perhaps I find most distressing the seemingly deeply rooted and ugly misogyny that is at the heart of the male - dominated church. To have an institution which is perhaps more than one - half female totally governed by male celibates must surely be among the most offensive scandals in the history of Christianity. There seems no room to see Jesus' total respect for and inclusion of, women in his active ministry.

I know that people are criticizing or even leaving, the other Christian denominations as well and that reflects trends in our society which we don't yet perhaps understand. Maybe we need to think less about institutions and more about practical love; less about rules and wrath and control and more about inclusive compassion. I don't know; I can only sense from my own experience; but I do know that it is worth going on looking for the way, the truth and the life which we are called to proclaim.

These then, are some of the issues that I feel so strongly about. I understand that many people do not feel at all as I do, or if they do, they see another way forward for themselves. For myself, insofar as I have light to see, I must move on as I can and hope and pray that the path I follow and the life I live will be one that brings life.

By the time that I had been 'out' for 6 or 7 months, I knew what my decision must be. A few months later after further prayer and pondering and discussion with my superior in England, I asked to be dispensed from my vows. That was a terrible decision to make and yet I knew it had to be. I was now to be on my own in a sense, no longer a member of a loving and supportive community, beginning life again in my early 70's. An adventure certainly, but also a profound and unsettling upheaval.

Now my new life was to begin in earnest. I was moving from a highly structured life to a life where I could pretty much make any choice I wanted. Let me say a bit about that change.

In the Roman Catholic church the monastic life (it is called 'monastic' for both women and men contemplatives) is a centuries old tradition of prayer and contemplation; of study and work. The Discalced Carmelite Order to which I belonged was deeply committed to a life lived in silence and solitude, away from the busyness of 'the world' in order to focus entirely on prayer for the world and for the church. It is an amazingly well- balanced life for such an odd way of living: there is work, study, there is the life of a community of individuals in which one quickly learns the difficulties and wonders of Gospel love, living together all day every day. This is a highly structured life, geared to one specific purpose: prayer. For those who are truly called to this way of living it is life -giving and I believe, an important gift to our world. For those who are not called it probably makes little sense and would not be livable if it was tried.

And now, returning to the more chaotic practicalities of city living consumed much of my immediate attention and energy. At the fairly basic level of modern city living there were certain immediate things that needed to be faced. And had I not been mature when I went to England ( I was 42) with a good deal of independent living experience, it would have been extremely daunting. For instance, I no longer had a credit rating and yet modern life is built on credit so it was immediately clear that I would need to address that. I needed a credit card. Just about everything seems to get purchased with a credit card but how was I to do that without a credit rating? In the end my bank issued me a card but with the minimum spending level: just $500! I couldn't do them too much damage! My driver's license had of course, long since expired and somewhere between 1979 and 2008 the Motor Vehicle people had destroyed records from the 60's when I had received my first license. So, there was no record of my ever having had a license; a problem that was solved, finally, with the help of the computer – another skill to be honed in the new world! The usual things such as grocery shopping, negotiating the bus system and shopping for a whole new wardrobe were all on the list of things to be experienced again.

At another more difficult level, I had lived a life of great silence for 30 years and was now in the middle of a noisy, bustling city. How not to let that distress me? At least I had the privilege of a place of my own for the time being so that I could continue to have some solitude and time for prayer. But of course I was also called upon to socialize in ways I hadn't for many years and found the ordinary 'small talk' of conversation demanding. But one learns, one moves on. And altogether, these and many of the daily tasks we all take for granted kept me occupied and I was thankful for that.

And now, after 2 ½ years of my new life I am filled with gratitude for all that I have been given for this part of my journey. I have some volunteer work to do that helps me to be 'useful' and I have family and friends to share time with. I continue to take as much time as I can for prayer and spiritual reading. Finally, I also want to say, after all that I have written, that I would not for one moment, take back one second of my life over the thirty years I spent in the monastery. Those years have enriched me; they enabled me to be exposed intensively to the huge spiritual tradition of Christianity and have given me the wonderful gift of friendships that will, I trust, last always. I believe I am a better person for those years and I am grateful beyond words. If it then seems perverse or contradictory that I should leave a life that gave me so much, I can only say that I do not see any other way forward now. Life moves on, I am still a contemplative at heart and  I hope and pray that I will continue in that path for the rest of my life.