{"id":1457,"date":"2017-12-19T12:15:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zatma.org\/new-wp\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2017-12-19T12:19:34","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:19:34","slug":"an-old-woman-trains-to-be-a-monk-her-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=1457","title":{"rendered":"An Old Woman Trains to Be a Monk: Her Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am an old woman and have lived most of my life as a catholic nun.\u00a0 My core is Jesus Christ and close to him stands his elder brother, the Buddha.\u00a0 I am training to be a spiritual monk and one of the tasks given is to write my spiritual biography.\u00a0 A glimpse is what I can give.<\/p>\n

It amazes me to say that my parents were born over one hundred years ago.\u00a0 My father came to America from Sweden at age four. His father was absent and his mother was emotionally distant. His rock was his grandmother, a wise and practical woman who taught him well.\u00a0 He loved her dearly.\u00a0 My father had a quiet sense of humor that showed in the twinkle of his eyes.\u00a0 He was musically gifted and played the trumpet.\u00a0 There was a deep anger in him that he tried to control but didn\u2019t always succeed.\u00a0 At forty two he had a heart attack and stroke which cost him his job, his independence and his ability to play his trumpet.\u00a0 He died when he was fifty eight years old.<\/p>\n

My mother was of French descent, a farmer\u2019s daughter and the oldest of eleven living children.\u00a0 She was educated through grade eight, danced ballet and became a nurse.\u00a0 She was musical and played the piano, often at night when we children were in bed. She could get lost reading a book. When she was thirty four she discovered she had cancer.\u00a0 She birthed a son. She died of cancer when she was forty one. My two sisters were eleven and ten.\u00a0 I was seven and my brother was four.<\/p>\n

After mother died her youngest sister stepped in to care for us four children and when I was in fifth grade she and my father married.\u00a0 She gave birth to a daughter. I was delighted with the marriage.\u00a0 She had always been in our lives so we kept the same aunts, uncles and cousins we always had and didn\u2019t have to get to know another family. She gave every thing she was capable of giving. It was a long time before I began to really appreciate how much she gave of herself.\u00a0 I loved my \u2018other\/mother\u2019 but my intense loyalty to my own mother kept me from letting get too close.\u00a0 I think that if we had spoken openly of our mother it might have been different but we didn\u2019t speak of her. I sensed this new mother would be hurt if we seemed to put our mother first.<\/p>\n

I learned early on to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself.\u00a0 To hide.\u00a0 I was not as successful as I thought and to my chagrin my stepmother knew me better than I realized. She told me one day that there was to be a surprise party for my grandmother\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 \u201cNow don\u2019t say anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s a surprise\u201d, she told me.\u00a0 With pride I declared that I could keep a secret!\u00a0 \u201cI know you can,\u2019 she quietly replied.\u00a0 \u201cToo well.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I think also that a part of my staying quiet may have been that I simply did not know how to speak of myself or my feelings.<\/p>\n

Because my father was partially paralyzed from a stroke our stepmother had to become the bread winner and it was tough making it financially.\u00a0 Living on the edge made for stress and anxiety and I carried it in my body and spirit.\u00a0 I had tension stomachaches that doubled me up in pain but I said nothing. It didn\u2019t occur to me to complain.<\/p>\n

I had a temper. One time when I was six my parents were away for a short time in the evening and my older sisters were in charge.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t come in when they called me so they locked the door on me.\u00a0 I got mad and banged on the front window and smashed it with my fist.\u00a0 To avoid the consequence an elaborate story was made up to tell our parents about a boy who threw a rock through the window.\u00a0 Years later the real story came out. I\u2019ve been angry more times than I care to admit, often because of stuffed emotions.\u00a0 Sometimes a burning anger, sometime cold.\u00a0 A hell realm of anger.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ve hurt those I loved most with my anger. I cannot recall anyone who has turned away from me.<\/p>\n

I knew when I was young that I wanted to be a nun.\u00a0 Whether it was because I loved and admired my two nun aunts or liked my teachers, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 But I loved Jesus. I believed he was with me and I wanted to be with him. I grew up with this conviction.<\/p>\n

In September of my eighteenth year I entered a religious community.\u00a0 My family drove me to the novitiate and I exchanged my blue and white flowered dress for a black skirt and blouse and little veil.\u00a0 I stood behind the window drapes and watched my family drive away without me. I would see them once a month on visiting Sunday and not go home to visit for five years.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t cry until Christmas.<\/p>\n

Novitiate life was full; up at five, meditate at five thirty, mass at six, breakfast and then the rest of the day. Studies and work and play.\u00a0 We studied logic, scripture, art, calligraphy, theology, learned to sing Gregorian chant, played foot ball and basket ball, cleaned toilets, scrubbed floors, worked in the kitchen and yard, learned to serve table properly, ate enormous amounts of food (speaking for myself) put on plays and some snuck behind the garages to smoke.\u00a0 I took everything seriously and once when I was reprimanded for something or other I worried for two weeks that I would be sent home.\u00a0 I carried a lot of anxiety. I kept hidden the itchy rash it caused on the palms of my hands.\u00a0 Another girl had the same kind of rash and left.\u00a0 I feared the same would happen to me.\u00a0 Eventually the spots cleared up.<\/p>\n

After novitiate my first ministry was teaching in our schools for twenty years. \u00a0Needs kept changing and we went where we were needed.<\/p>\n

The frequent changes were unsettling to me and I longed to be in one place permanently.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know that impermanence is the name of the game.\u00a0 I was a creative teacher, worked hard and loved my students but I wasn\u2019t really getting much interior nourishment although we had our daily rituals and prayer.\u00a0 I felt a yearning for something.\u00a0 Once I told one of my teachers that I had \u2018this kind of yearning inside\u2019.\u00a0 She said that that was prayer.\u00a0 It was comforting to believe that prayer was going on inside me even without words.<\/p>\n

One thing that did nourish me was art making.\u00a0 I would clear out a space in an attic or basement or bedroom to paint and draw.\u00a0 It was through art that I could say what was inside me and work things out.\u00a0 I was not an activist although I tried to be.\u00a0 It simply did not fit.\u00a0 My way of addressing the world\u2019s suffering was through visual art.\u00a0 An example is when the Twin Towers came down. I was horror struck. The world seemed totally dark until one sister quietly spoke the words \u2018a great migration of souls\u2019 referring to all those who were plunged to their death.\u00a0 She saw them as spirits rising. \u00a0Her words had a deep effect on me.\u00a0 I collected pictures of the burning towers and with those pictures and a figure I had drawn, made a collage showing the spirits of the dead ascending back into the womb of a Divine Mother. I had to believe that there was something more than hate and destruction.<\/p>\n

The sixties saw great changes in the church and in community.\u00a0 Pope John XXlll threw open the windows to let in fresh air and at the same time much went out the window.\u00a0 There was a new sense of freedom and many of my sister friends left.\u00a0 It was like a river flowing away. Many changes occurred in community.\u00a0 One visual change was trading our seventeenth century robes for modern day dress.\u00a0 I looked forward to this for I wished to be a woman among women, not someone stuck on the hierarchical ladder, a step below clergy and a step above lay people.\u00a0 Without robes we would be as other woman and not receive preferential treatment.<\/p>\n

A lot of stress came with all the changes in church and community as we struggled to find a new footing.\u00a0 The old dropped away and the new had not yet taken hold.\u00a0 At that same time I accepted a position in community that simply did not fit.\u00a0 I did not have the talent for it and it did not use the talents I had.\u00a0 I said yes to it without discerning well, proud that I was thought to have something to offer.\u00a0 Working in the core of the community I became aware of the tensions and disagreements I saw and wondered (I don\u2019t know who I thought I was!) how I could remain with such a messed up group of women religious.\u00a0 I was depressed and totally disillusioned and began to look at other options.\u00a0 But nothing seemed to fit.\u00a0 I learned of a day of retreat that was being held somewhere and I went, thinking that I might hear one word that spoke to me.\u00a0 Just one word was all I asked. There was a healing ceremony that day and though healthy in body I was sick at heart and asked to receive the sacrament of the sick.\u00a0 After I was anointed and felt the hands of others pressing deep upon my shoulders in prayer, I took my seat.\u00a0 Something happened; the great depressive weight I carried traveled up through my feet, my legs, my whole body and passed out the top of my head.\u00a0 It was gone.\u00a0 The weight and depression did not return.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My vision cleared and I began to see that I am a wounded woman living in a community of wounded women.\u00a0 I was in the right place.<\/p>\n

There have been other moments of consolation when the Divine shown through the thin veil of separation.\u00a0 One such moment was when my father died when I was twenty five.\u00a0 I felt an urgent need to pray for him and sat up into the night repeating a psalm we prayed for the dead, \u2018Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Hear my voice. ‘ (Psalm 130) \u00a0The prayer prayed itself in me for a long time.\u00a0 Then abruptly I could no longer utter a word on his behalf.\u00a0 A deep peace filled me and I knew my father\u2019s wandering had ceased and he had entered into his Rest.<\/p>\n

My stepmother lived into her nineties.\u00a0 She wanted to stay in her own home and with help was able to do so until the last short while of her life.\u00a0 One of my sisters and I were closest in distance so we were the ones to care for her needs.\u00a0 During the last twelve years we made sure that at least one of us was near to respond to any need or crises.\u00a0 We became familiar with the inside of hospitals. We cared well for her but sometimes I also resented the frequent demands made on me.\u00a0 Again and again the memory of my selfishness nudges me toward generosity.<\/p>\n

During that time I had a heart episode. The ER doctor asked me if I wanted to be resuscitated.\u00a0 That caused me to pause.\u00a0 Death is real. Even though I had written in my living will that I do not wish to be resuscitated I decided I wanted to live.\u00a0 The doctor also thought that I should.\u00a0 I felt that I have work to do.\u00a0 They finally got things working right and I stay quite healthy.\u00a0 As I lay in the hospital bed I recalled a seventeenth century teaching by Man-An that I had memorized.\u00a0 One phrase of it is,\u00a0 \u2018Do not say \u2026that the poor and sick do not have the power to work on the Way.\u2019\u00a0 Those words were my constant companion.\u00a0 My illness was my practice.<\/p>\n

About sixteen years ago a spiritual companion introduced me to Zen.\u00a0 I read\u00a0 Zen Mind Beginners Mind<\/u>, my first book of Buddhist teachings.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t stop reading and while I didn\u2019t understand very much I was nourished. I made a Zen retreat in New York and heard a Buddhist priest give a teaching. She touched something in me.\u00a0 Even though I lived many miles away I asked her if she would be my teacher.\u00a0 The answer was yes. She is my still my teacher.\u00a0 I became a member of the sangha<\/em> and traveled there when I could but distance made it infrequent and irregular. I missed not being consistently present for the teachings and rituals.\u00a0 My connection with my teacher was uplifting and encouraging and challenging and painful. I have felt disappointed and angry.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a rocky road I have wanted to quit but I trust her.\u00a0 Too often I take things personally.\u00a0 My pride is challenged. My poisons are held up to me again and again. When I write something and send it by email it might come back chopped liver. But then there might come a Yes! when I finally get something!\u00a0 It\u2019s like the sun coming out.<\/p>\n

Now I am in the last phase of my life and am training to be a Spiritual Monk. I wasn\u2019t sure about becoming a monk even though I said yes quite quickly.\u00a0 Nothing in particular happened to convince me that this is the way for me to go. I had to just wait until it took root and it has quietly grown and feels right. I want to know more deeply the One for whom I have always yearned even when I didn\u2019t know it. May this journey I am on bring me closer to that desire.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never too late!<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
\"Humming<\/div>\n
\n

Author: Ho Getsu Sen Gen<\/p>\n

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at:\u00a0yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It’s never too late!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[124,123,49],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","category-uncategorized","tag-catholic-nun","tag-old-woman","tag-zen"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}