It's six o'clock in the morning. Gently being nudged to open my eyes by the hand-rung bells echoing from the
Carmelite Monastery tower. At last count, twelve cloistered nuns live in a beautiful peaceful setting complete with ocean views—behind the white walls of their sanctuary. Sounds nice.
I've made friends with one, Sister Roberta. She walks Maggie, the black Labrador Retriever, twice a day. Maggie is the service dog to another sister who is wheelchair bound. Sister Roberta is our resident 'town crier.' She loves to schmooze with the neighbors, mostly those who have children. It's very sweet, the relationships she has created with them. I'm not sure how I was brought into her circle of grace, but I like it.
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One day a few years ago another sister I had never met was out walking Maggie. Sister Roberta had flown north for her annual trek to visit her family. Maggie, who knows me by now, is pulling the sister over my way to receive her ritual pat on the head. The sister and I began a neighborly chat. The ease of that conversation turning quickly into (this happens to me all the time) full disclosure. Not me, her! She was relatively new to the Carmelite order, and in particular our neighborhood Carmelite Monastery. She was a divorced woman, and after her daughter turned twenty—at fifty years old, she turned to her calling, God.
A bit in shock by this news, I put on my best poker face and continued the conversation/inquiry. I had no idea you could do that as a Catholic. She spoke about how, in a go-ahead-and-read-between-the-lines manner, that she was the only one of her 'kind' at this particular order. I was getting the feeling that she wanted someone to talk to, and there I was. Outside the walls, outside—where no one was listening?
Her subtle hint of not belonging didn't deter me from wanting to know more about the peaceful life inside those walls. Eyes wide, I was yearning for stories of peace, joy, tranquility, inner freedom, a life free for love. Yes, I went to their website. And it's all there spelled-out in the things that matter to the Carmelites, but I wanted to hear it chanted in the sister's words. With starry eyes I ask her about life inside the Carmelite Monastery. "Don't you just love it in there?" Except for their outfits (better known as 'habits'), I dream it's this joyful endless sleepover with your sisters. Praying, eating, gardening, more praying, singing at mass, watching a sunset and maybe a little dog walking.
Her response, "I love God." With a musical-note upward-emphasis on the word God.
She didn't have to say another word. I totally understood what wasn't being said. At that moment, and rewind a bit to her previous statement of being the only one of her 'kind', my idyllic fantasy of running off to the sacred spaces of nuns and monks were squashed. No matter where you go, there you are. And so are other people!
Honestly—it's probably more magnified inside those walls. As for the Sister, I saw her once or twice more walking Maggie in Sister Roberta's absence, but she avoided me and my corner-of-confession like the plague. I wasn't going to tell anyone. Besides, God was already listening.
As the universe would have it, I 'coincidentally' just ran into Sister Roberta, who, by-the-way, I haven't bumped into in months. Making her neighborhood rounds, walking the evening walk with Maggie by her side. As if 'someone' heard what was being written, but not being said.
