#notanun

Come see Nurse Beau, ready to cure all your wartime ailments! #thriftortreat #warnurse #notanun (at Value Village) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoRtFpyAWlr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ofualdjvjlqn

And then there was the time Mammy and her friend Fleur went off to Castlecore to visit Kathleen and decide whether they too would join. They were staying over and never slept a wink because they heard this thump thump thump up and down the corridor outside their room all night and it stopped outside for a bit and then started again. When they finally fell asleep Mammy woke with something heavy pressing down on her chest but there wasn't anything there. She was terrified. When she told the nuns in the morning they told her that the Lord that used to own the house had a wooden leg. She decided she wasn't staying another night there and wasn't joining either.

I've been waiting for a chance to write this down all week, and to share my sense of great blessing. It's going to be long. I think I'll start by citing the various quotes that have become particularly relevant in the last ten days. “A [wo]man knows when [s]he has found his/[her] vocation when [s]he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.” (Thomas Merton, my [ ] ) "Am I meant to know, but not to seek? Did you know how hard I’d find that? Is that why you made it this difficult? So I’d have time to work that out?” (JK Rowling/Harry Potter) "It was not a conscious thing, I just remember seeing the word poet on a printed page and having such identification with it." (Frieda Hughes) "I frequently wonder whether I should become, or indeed, am, a nun." (woman interviewed by Jennifer Kavanagh for her "The World is Our Cloister" book.) and, importantly, the story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel: (Gen 32:24-30) "Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” I have struggled a great deal the last few years with the issue of vocation. Those who know me IRL will know why it is that I cannot make Canonical vows, (and I want to make it clear from the outset that I would not change the situation that I'm in, full stop, end of story - I have been truly blest by God) - for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you're welcome to ask privately if you are genuinely interested, and if I trust you to respond in a non judgmental way, I'll happily explain. However, knowing that I will probably never be a canonically vowed religious has done nothing to help my struggle with the Calling I have received from God. And God alone knows just how much I have struggled with that one. It has affected my health, both mental and physical. It has affected my spiritual and prayer life. It has generally affected my well being in every strata of my life. Not just my life, either; although the experience for me has been a lonely one, in the same way that Jacob moved his family across the ford, before engaging in his struggle with the angel. "It was not a conscious thing, I just remember seeing the word poet on a printed page and having such identification with it." - replace poet with religious, and you have me in a nutshell. I first felt called to religious life when I was eight. It never left. Even when I was experimenting with Pagan rituals, and at my utter lowest ebb, mentally and emotionally, it was always there. And always ignored. I finally responded to the long-experienced call to become Catholic in 2011, and I had no idea how much harder this would make the struggle, especially after my Reception and Confirmation in 2012. Because at that point, I became aware that I would have to engage in this struggle, I could no longer leave it ignored. Even admitting that I needed to do that was painful. And although I have many loving and deeply caring people around me, who I could share this with to some extent, it was more like sending letters from the battlefield to loved ones at home. And like Jacob, I struggled through the night. In November last year, as some of you know, my back "went" - partly from an existing structural problem, partly, I think, from interpersonal stress with a person who occupies an "official" position in my life, and partly from this struggle. Although it isn't as bad as it was, the sciatica symptoms have remained with me - as they do with Jacob. (I'm currently waiting on a surgical consult, but that's another story!) This calendar year has, from the very outset, been a time for me to reflect on my Calling, on how I can live the life I'm being asked to, whilst remaining true to, and affirming, the life choices I have already made. In the words of a favourite character, "can one do one's country [or indeed, one's God] a good service by going back on one's word of honour?" (Violet Needham, The Black Riders, [ ] mine.) I found myself proposing a more engaged and involved form of Association to my Congregation - something which initially gave them great excitement and energy, but with prayer and thought, became an idea so huge as to need much more time, and work. Of course, I was disappointed - I'd hardly be human if I wasn't - but out of this discussion came so many blessings, and the potential for more (again, another story). At the same time, I had chanced on the Jennifer Kavanagh book, which has a lot of interesting ideas, albeit is a little... too big for its covers? And so open as to be hard to hold it all! However, the quote from the woman above struck me strongly: "I frequently wonder whether I should become, or indeed, am, a nun." The idea that one could be a nun without, er, being a nun. Let me break that down a bit. When we talk about Vocation, as Catholics, we understand this to mean either the Vocation of Priesthood, Marriage (& parenthood), being Single, or Religious Life. All of which are equally valid. My great friend and faith mother is a mother. Yes, she is blest with two children. But, as she says, she was a mother the day she was born. There were many women in and around WW1 (and indeed, in any war situation) who were called to the vocation of marriage, and motherhood, whose boyfriends, fiancés and husbands went off to the war and didn't come back. They never married someone else, for various reasons. Did that make them any less called to marriage? Of course not. Did that make them any less mothers? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. They found ways to be mothers, in their individual lives, that did not include the experience of pregnancy and the act of giving birth. My friend was a mother the day she was born. I was a religious the day I was born. Even my non-Catholic Gran has said she always expected me to become a nun. But, like those women who *are* mothers, and yet physically, for one reason or another, cannot *be* mothers, I am a religious who, canonically, cannot be a religious. All this time, I've been struggling with this calling, and with my own morals and conscience, and which one I am answerable to, and I have finally realised that I can hold both in an affirmative way. "Am I meant to know, but not to seek? Did you know how hard I’d find that? Is that why you made it this difficult? So I’d have time to work that out?" I know that I am a religious in the very core of who I am, but I do not seek canonical recognition of this. This is not an easy realization to come to - we all flourish with confirmation and affirmation of who we are by others - and that is something I can have no expectation for... although there are some in my life who do understand, and affirm, and I thank God for them and that experience. God knew I needed the time to work that out. At the end of his struggle with the angel, Jacob is given a new name. A new identity. He has struggled with divine and human beings, and he has prevailed. He has seen God face to face, and lived. He is stronger than he was before. I may not have been given a new name, but I feel I have been given my identity, or rather, the ability to see and understand my identity for what it is. And that is the biggest blessing. The sun has indeed risen, and I am, quite literally, limping forward into living my life, as opposed to worrying about it. My heart burns within me, and I cannot stop thanking God for this! "The challenge is to be true to yourself and live as one… To laugh like a child and love with the power of your soul… To follow your own heart and act for the world." (message on a card I keep by my bed, ever relevant!)