Sister Bloggers Build Community

Catholic sisters, also known as nuns, were my teachers for twelve years.

No matter what the Whoopi Goldberg movies and the "Sound of Music" might have put out there, very few of them wore the traditional habit by the time I hit the scene, in what I call the "felt banner and butterflies" era of the Catholic church in the mid-1970s. There was also, unfortunately, very little spontaneous singing and even fewer huge song and dance competitions to raise funds right before the, er, credits rolled. Mostly we sold chocolate bars like everyone else.

Sister Margaret Mary, our tiny, taskmaster elementary school librarian, was still in the full black and white habit. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur ran the school, mostly Philly expats come south to Maryland, with whom one's green-plaid-clad self did not mess (especially algebra and gym teacher Sister Mary Pat and her ever-present dogs, Bobo and Gretchen.) They were football freaks who let us out of school to go downtown for the parade after the Redskins won the Superbowl, and sponsored the first writing contest I ever won - a poetry competition about, again, the Redskins. I had then and still maintain little interest in or understanding of football, but I learned how to fake it in the name of minor fame early on - which in this case amounted to an assembly announcement and an envelope full of two-dollar bills that I still have somewhere.

The Religious of Jesus and Mary, a French-Canadian order who lived and taught at my high school, were a bit more warm and fuzzy - except, again, for Sister Yvette in the library. Yeesh. She'd utter a terrifying, sing-song "SOMEone is EA-ting in the LI-brary" when my friend Barbara insisted on chowing on her Hot Fries just to irritate her. (The best urban legend at my high school involved Sister Yvette pointing at a table full of girls and shrieking, "THAT TABLE GET UP AND LEAVE!" The girls picked up the table, and carried it out the door.)

Fast forward twenty years, and I am an eternal seeker - a non-practicing Catholic with a healthy respect for most of the things I learned, a firm grasp on my right to reject them in favor of other things that make sense for me and the world as I understand it, and a general disdain for plaid. I was too young at the time to really contemplate or much less question the choices of the women who taught, and occasionally, admittedly, scared the daylights out of me. It didn't occur to me to ask why they opted for a life of poverty, chastity, and service when it was increasingly less common, seemed to my young self to be a real drag, and to my adult self still seems like a really rough road to walk.

It didn't occur to me that Sister Margaret Mary's life was not just about stamping Oscar Owl bookmarks, or that she even pondered deeper questions inside or out of the library that was the size of my current bedroom. I know now that she must have. And although she may have kept a diary, or just a running internal dialogue between herself and God, one thing she couldn't do at the time was keep a blog.

This is no longer the case, and I'm here to tell you that the sisters are blogging. A lot. I don't know why I was so surprised to find the numbers of blogs written by women religious in various denominations. If a community exists these days, chances are it has at least some Web presence. I was surprised, though, perhaps because "Do nuns have blogs?" was a question I'd never considered, asked, or investigated before. Now that I have, I've gone beyond surprised to simply impressed.

Sister Bloggers was the first site to set me straight. Susan Rose maintains this collective for "sister bloggers" and also blogs at Musings of a Discerning Woman, where she describes herself as "a Catholic School Girl turned Agnostic turned Church Geek turned Nun." She has the distinction of being the first novice I've ever heard make reference to the Clash and sign off with "Peace out." She's just landed in a new house in London as part of her first novitiate year.

My Sister housemates here have been very gracious, making me feel right at home. I have a lovely room overlooking the garden. I’ve already consumed lots of tea. And it feels like home. One great benefit of joining a religious community is that you suddenly have many places to call home!

Monday I’ll be heading to the homeless day centre where I’ll be volunteering to learn more about the possibilities there. For now I’m just going to continue getting settled in.

A Nun's Life's list of blogs by Catholic nuns was the second site that caught my attention. Sister Julie Vieira links to many other blogs, and says:

Mostly, A Nun’s Life is my story — what it is like for me to be Catholic nun, that is, a member of a Catholic religious community of women. It’s also about nuns and sisters in general, how we are portrayed in the media, and who we are “for real.” I have been very fortunate to develop friendships with many nuns, and it is through them that I have come to better know myself and this crazy thing called religious life.

Sister Julie acknowledges the one thing that is certain about religious life in many denominations - that community is at the heart of their life experiences, like it or not. The sisters writing online today do many things together, just as I witnessed the nuns of my childhood - they teach, live, pray, eat, travel, work, and age together.

Sister Katy in Milwaukee is the a recently professed member of the School Sisters of St. Francis, and, at 26, also the youngest member in the United States (a far cry from the "old days" where I'm sure she wouldn't have even been close.) Her blog is called "Religious Life Rocks! The Adventures of "One Fun Nun."

Sister Susan at Light Through Stained Glass Windows writes from Mount Saint Benedict Monastery, Erie, Pennsylvania. She wants to share some of the "daily goings-on." Rather than isolating, the monastery opens its doors to community.

August is time for R&R&R, rest, relaxation and retreat time. Our hermitages and guest rooms have been filled with people trying to find a precious few days before the summer ends for these three R's. I noticed that the meditation labyrinth we put in a few years ago outside the east front door is a little overgrown right now. You can still see the stones that mark the spiral path, but it takes a bit of looking. Maybe it's better that way, as a slow watchful walk is certainly the best way to move through it.

Reflections of Reflections is written by a Western Buddhist nun, studying in shedra, living in a Tibetan nunnery in India. Her photos are beautiful, and her stories give some insight into what it's like to be a female on a journey traditionally dominated by men.

Another advantage is that young nuns may now have role models of their own gender. In a way, the lama or guru is the main role model, we hope to attain his or her level of realization and become a great being. However, you won't find any nuns at our nunnery who say, "In this life, I'm planning to become a spiritual master who can guide others." It would be an extremely arrogant thing to say. So now that we have ani lopons, who are qualified to teach, and hold greater responsibility among nuns, what better role models for young nuns?

Many sister bloggers are, naturally, geeks - often in this case for what they believe to be the greater good. In Sister Anne's "Nunblog", she writes:

I am wildly enthusiastic about our mission of putting communications technology at the service of the Gospel.

It appears so. She's got a YouTube channel, and via her links on the right side of the page, readers can access webcams of the Vatican, including the tomb of Pope John Paul II, and the Lourdes Grotto. The next time I drop by my grandmother's assisted living, I'm going to be a huge hit.

Sister Claire Joy is an Episcopal nun with grown children and a great sense of humor. She explains "Reason #1" for the choice she's made to join a religious community in a recent post of the same name.

People look at you funny if you talk about seeing angels in the subway... real angels, not just the metaphorical nice people doing nice deeds. Yet I have seen them. Some roll their eyes if you comment that there are no accidents, or look back on a string of unconnected, supposedly random events and see a divine pattern.

This is one of several reasons I stumbled onto (and into) the convent. I can make outlandish statements about God's will or universal truths and some will actually nod in agreement. Sisters who see it differently do not argue, because one thing we agree upon is that each sister's path to God is her own. Nobody else can decide (or judge) if it's naive, immature, deep or shallow. I do not have to justify to anyone here that I believe in God, that I believe in divine intervention, or that I believe my purpose has been destined from before birth.

I have friends who think my wanting to be a nun is madness, or a lark, or an easy way to get out of the worry of retirement income. Some have witnessed the succession of career shifts, geographical relocations, or my constant search for the perfect life partner. That I can see a holy pattern in all of that is beside the point to them.

No... it is the point.

Jen Goodnow wrote an article for the Episcopal New Yorker called "Nuns in the Blogosphere." She featured Sister Claire Joy and her friend, Sister Catherine Grace, another Episcopal sister, who writes at Grace-Full Thoughts. Her blog is as much about food, animals, travel and nature as it is about religion. She wrote this summer about trying to save a duckling injured on the farm where she lives in community.

Somehow, in the dark of night when inky terrors tend to strike even the strongest among us, a second miracle was taking place. The mortally-wounded Chipper was transforming into a chirpy, wobbly-but- upright five-day-old duckling. When I saw him make a nearly successful leap out of a foot-high box, I knew the Miracle Worker had been to visit.

So … was it God-with-a-Magic-Wand? I don’t think so. I think it was Chipper with a little heart of possibility, Sr. Emmanuel with a heart of unbounded love, a bunch of scared sisters with hearts of deep desire.

After all, isn’t that the way an effective Miracle Worker operates?

Moving Mountain is written by Mugo, who lives in a UK monastery of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. This month she's been posting photos of all thirteen sheds on the monastery property, along with "Pearls of Wisdom" from Zen Master Ryokan's poem "My Precepts". The photos are lovely and the pearls made me think.

Sister Nicole writes about her journey at Life of a New Sister. I went to graduate school at the University of Dayton, a school run by the Marianist order of priests, in the city where she now lives and ministers as a Marianist sister.

Another big question and my prayer for this phase of life is, "God, what is the call? What are the needs of our world that are not being met and how are you calling me to put my gifts at the service of these needs??"

As you may know, a majority of my time this semester is focused on issues of social justice... in many different ways, but still most revolving around living out Catholic Social Teaching (still called the best kept secret of the Catholic Church?). This is relatively new territory for me. So, I imagine that I'll learn a lot this semester... especially about poverty, homelessness, immigration, and unfair social systems. Hence, the quote at the top of the post from today's Gospel...

My junior year campus minister, a young sister from the Caribbean named (naturally) Sister Mary, looked deep into my eyes and suggested I consider the vocation. I seem to recall fleeing the room in a panic, certain she saw something I didn't, and desperately did not want to deal with. I hope I'd have the good sense not to do that today, even though I know in my heart that the religious life is not my path. These blogs indicate that the conversation would likely have been illuminating anyway.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites, and has been furiously Googling various nuns she used to know, to no avail.