Home now.

Well, we arrived home safely the day before yesterday - both glad I think, to be back after a very busy and lovely visit to the UK.

I need not have been apprehensive about my visits to the monasteries where the sisters I had parted from 3 years ago were now living. The welcome I received moved me very much; it was warm and full of loving friendship and care. Also, one of the things I had not so much anticipated was that these visits enabled me to see other sisters whom I knew well and to share with them why it was that I felt I needed to leave my religious life. Most would have heard only second-hand and now at least, there was the possibility for them to ask questions if they wished or to engage in dialogue. It was for me altogether very healing and I am grateful. Not so many years ago leaving religious life was something done in secret without the opportunity to say goodbye - I am so grateful for the change and for the huge loving generosity of my sisters.

One of the things I also did was to turn up on the doorstep of the old monastery to visit the new owner and to see if we could look around the grounds at least. Here again though, we were given a lovely welcome and a tour inside and out.  It seems still to be a work in progress but it is so good to see what James and Tracey are choosing to do with the space and how lovingly everything is being undertaken. There are big changes but just the sorts of ones you would expect in returning the building to a private home. I was so grateful to see how beautifully it is being created anew, though of course memories came rushing back as each new space reminded me of a life and lives that had been lived there in such a different way. 

I think I have heard it said that old houses may have many memories somehow stored in their walls and I feel that might be especially true of this one. It is 126 years old and for only 27 of those was it a monastery. Otherwise it has always been a family house - the principal one of the village.  Still, I do feel that those 27 years infused the house with a very special gift of prayer and faithful human living that focused that 'space' on God . So I pray that James and Tracey and their family will imbibe that special gift and live happily and safely in it. 


Finally, I want to say what a joy it was to have this time with my niece Susan. She was a very attentive and generous companion. This was, in so many ways, my trip, into territory she did not know. She came without complaint and while I was visiting with the sisters she was left to her own resources, often in rather isolated rural areas. However, she also shared in some most unusual monastic experiences - things that most people would not see, so perhaps that will be a special memory for her. I am truly grateful to her.





 

Anticipation in the journey

Most people I know think that anticipation is a huge part of our journeys. We seem to do an awful lot of looking forward to things - events, trips, visits - at least I do. I sometimes then wonder if at these times I live more in the future than in the right now. If that is so, then for sure I think I miss a great deal that is the only reality there is - now, this minute.

I am thinking about this because of my much anticipated trip to the UK on Monday. I have been 'looking forward' to it for a long time. It will, I think, be my last trip there in part because I don't so much enjoy lifting big, heavy  suitcases all over everywhere any more and in part because I won't have the money. But there is also a certain sense of anxiety (I'm not quite sure if that is the right word but it will do) because I will see most of the sisters I left behind when our monastery closed and I am not sure how and on what terms, we will now relate. I think things will be okay but I am a bit apprehensive (maybe that is the word I want). We will see.

I do want to see the sisters because they were so much a part of my life over the thirty years of my religious life. I want to hear from them that they are at peace and indeed, happy. I want to see their faces and read there what I can of their well-being. We will see.

This trip is different though because I am going with my niece whom I am just getting to know again after all the years of absence. So there is some of the stuff that tourists do that I have not done for many, many years. We will see.

What I want to do more than anything though is just to live each moment. I hope to enjoy everything but to be here, now and not be thinking: what will we do this afternoon, what about the visit planned for tomorrow. I don't want to 'waste' a minute in that sense at least - (I do rather think there are a number of really good ways to 'waste' time but not by not living in the present). We will see.

Back to the blog at the end of the month I hope.