Day by day...

r.mac_2

I hate to tell you this faith, but savvy is a very wise woman

I've read your thread with interest and want to wish you luck. I think God must have a special journey for you and so try and look on it as an adventure. perhaps your experiences will enable you to help others in the future and give you a different perspective on life, in and out of the convent.

Anyway - have a lovely weekend and enjoy getting to wear your red coat.

daska

Oh Faith, big hugs, yes, life hurts at times, it's part of being human.

I strongly suspect your Prioress recognised that this hurt would find you one day - wherever you were - and good reason to believe that dealing with it out here right now will hurt less than saving it up for later. I know it's cold comfort but however much it may feel it this isn't a punishment, it's just part of your journey, they want you back when you're ready.

kittiej

I can't help feeling a bit of "how do you solve a problem like Maria"

I think a few of us cannot grasp the idea of being thrown to the wilderness? Well I can't anyway.

With the greatest of love and respect I hope all ends well for you, and that you can find the peace and place that you deserve.

faithcecilia

Thanks to you all for being so lovely:T I simply can't go back and got through one by one.

I think, after the shock ofe being sent into a world I thought I had left behind, the hardest thing has been to accept that whatever I feel, this IS my life now. I am having to 'redo' things I truely believed I had done for the last time - silly things really but like today I just bought a mobile phone, and at some point I will need to get a lap top (anyone know of any going cheap???:o).

Where I am living, aside from my 'frandlord' I know no one. I am used to being the heart and soul, and not being able to just pick up the phone and arrange to meet someone has been very, very hard. On top of this is the feeling that however 'happy' I may become (and hopefully the job will mean i do become happy) I will never truely be home.

It will sound very stranmge to you all, but before I entered the monastery I was desperately aware of the feeling of being 'in the world and not of it' and that was befor I had lived in Carmel for 16mths. Now I KNOW I am not of 'the world' and that the life I am eventually called tolead is nothing like the one I am being made to live now.

Here is 'home' http://www.quidenhamcarmel.org.uk/becoming_carmelite.php

The pics were taken befor my 'clothing', when I got my habit, but its still home and its where, God willing, I will go back to.

ceridwen

I had worked out you are a Carmelite - just not exactly where it was.

What can I say? ...and how do I phrase it? (trying to be as "gentle" as I can - but forgive me if I don't manage it...) - errr....well...<cough> I'll have a go and try:

I think, in life, there are a variety of reasons why we may choose to do something/to follow a certain Path/whatever.

A common life situation I am thinking of here is the one as to whether we get married or no (at which point I have to state that I have never been married personally) - well my view of marriage is that I never categorically rejected the idea of getting married on the one hand, NOR did I decide that I was definitely GOING to get married on the other hand. I have seen a lot of people marry a man NOT because that particular man was the right one for them and they were in love - BUT because they didn't want to be single. Do you see what I am saying? I don't know quite how to phrase it - but I would have got married if I had met the right man for me/I loved him/he loved me. I didn't get married - because I never met that man (I don't know if he exists to be truthful...). I certainly wasnt going to get married because I don't like some aspects of being single.

I just took the view that "if I meet HIM - then I'll marry him". If I don't meet HIM - then I won't get married. Either way - I'll make the best of the situation I have.

So - what I'm struggling to say is that it may be that your Prioress wants you to be quite quite sure that your reason for being in the Convent is because you actively want to be in the Convent - rather than, on the other hand, NOT wanting to be out in The World here with us. There is a difference of emphasis - small, but very important.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong - as what I know about being a nun could be written on a post-it note with room to spare) - but I "think" the idea is to be a "Bride of Christ" isn't it....so it's a sorta analogous situation to my comments about actively wanting to be "married" - as opposed to not wanting to be "single"????

Your Prioress will know as well that you are very much at an age where the average woman is thinking seriously about whether to get married or no/whether to have children or no - and she wants to be sure and certain you would never regret not having those things that can be very important to some women.

From what I can see (only a very small part of the picture 'tis true) - I think your Prioress is doing this with your welfare very much in mind and is very much hoping you will take this full year "Out" so she can see you are quite "settled" in your mind about all this.

I can see to some extent why you might have always felt "in the world - but not of it" - and actually my first thought there was "it's just a matter of degree to some extent to myself". In a rather different way/for a rather different reason - I can empathise with that to an extent, as I am personally in the Transition Movement (ie a large/growing group of people who realise that we are all about to head into Post Peak Oil territory as a Society - as the whole basis our society has been built on (ie oil) is about to become scarcer and scarcer and....etc) and our way of life is going to have to change in many ways (hopefully eventually for the better:D). I first realised this back in the 1970s and have felt VERY VERY isolated for years in some ways - with knowing this on the one hand and my outright refusal to get married for the "wrong" reasons on the other hand (not a common stance for my generation). It is only now - where many other people won't get married for the "wrong" reasons either and a growing number of other people realise that our way of life is changing that I have quite a lot of "company" on my road through Life. So - what I'm saying is "there are a variety of reasons for not being in step with others/feeling in the world but not of it - not just "religious vocation" ones". In my case - its because I was ahead of my time - and that was quite a lonely position to be in - and I'm glad I'm not in that position any more (as I didn't like being in a position where few other people thought the same way...so I'm glad of the fact that many others now do so too:D).

So - I DO hope I havent offended you by phrasing things badly - but I've used the best words I could think of to express myself here.

ceridwen

...in fact I guess I could sum up by saying that life is a series of challenges (certainly in my experience - and in the experience of most other people) and it is just a question of which particular set of challenges we face. The vast majority of us are going to face challenges one way or another.

I guess there are challenges to be faced as a nun - I can't begin to imagine - other than to think that it would be a challenge for a woman who wanted marriage and possibly children to have to learn to live without them. But I guess there must be other challenges involved as well.

The challenges one faces in secular life. Off a very quick "bat" I've faced to date (fingers crossed VERY HARD there won't be any more......):
- rape
- other crime
- unemployment
- low salary (always...)
- having to adapt to being single (when I had hoped I would meet the right man for me - but it wasnt to be obviously)
- assorted health problems of my own over the years
- parents with severe health problems
- living in an overcrowded society (when I hate crowds anyway)
- living in a noisy society (when I hate noise)
- living in a warlike society (when I hate violence)
- living in a society with a high level of dishonesty
- living in a society where the majority of people appear to have little or no respect for Nature (many people think the Planet is just there to be used and abused)

I have often wondered if its possible to get away from all these challenges - but I dont think it is and therefore I think my basic task for Life is to learn to live with these challenges as best as I can and make the best I can of my life. Its what we all have to do ultimately.

ceridwen

..and to prove that we can find an MSE angle in everything on this Board :money::D- I've had a good old look-round that website of yours - and they do some rather attractive cards there - I might send off for some later....

and dont forget that phrase I quoted to you before of "All will be well". I see that one of those cards has the exact wording "All shall be well and all shall be well and thou shalt see it thyself that all manner of things shall be well".

daska

faithcecilia wrote: »

It will sound very stranmge to you all, but before I entered the monastery I was desperately aware of the feeling of being 'in the world and not of it' and that was befor I had lived in Carmel for 16mths. Now I KNOW I am not of 'the world' and that the life I am eventually called tolead is nothing like the one I am being made to live now.

From experience I know that wherever you go you take yourself with you. Is it possible that one of the reasons you're back in the world is to enable you to learn to be content wherever you are? Not all nuns enter enclosed orders - some are very happy without a habit and working alone. They would probably argue that they are not of the world even though they live very much in the world. I'm not for one moment suggesting that you should want to work like this or that it's an ideal to aspire to, just that being 'not of the world' doesn't seem to me to be a good reason for not being happy in the world.

poet123

ceridwen wrote: »

I had worked out you are a Carmelite - just not exactly where it was.

What can I say? ...and how do I phrase it? (trying to be as "gentle" as I can - but forgive me if I don't manage it...) - errr....well...<cough> I'll have a go and try:

I think, in life, there are a variety of reasons why we may choose to do something/to follow a certain Path/whatever.

A common life situation I am thinking of here is the one as to whether we get married or no (at which point I have to state that I have never been married personally) - well my view of marriage is that I never categorically rejected the idea of getting married on the one hand, NOR did I decide that I was definitely GOING to get married on the other hand. I have seen a lot of people marry a man NOT because that particular man was the right one for them and they were in love - BUT because they didn't want to be single. Do you see what I am saying? I don't know quite how to phrase it - but I would have got married if I had met the right man for me/I loved him/he loved me. I didn't get married - because I never met that man (I don't know if he exists to be truthful...). I certainly wasnt going to get married because I don't like some aspects of being single.

I just took the view that "if I meet HIM - then I'll marry him". If I don't meet HIM - then I won't get married. Either way - I'll make the best of the situation I have.

So - what I'm struggling to say is that it may be that your Prioress wants you to be quite quite sure that your reason for being in the Convent is because you actively want to be in the Convent - rather than, on the other hand, NOT wanting to be out in The World here with us. There is a difference of emphasis - small, but very important.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong - as what I know about being a nun could be written on a post-it note with room to spare) - but I "think" the idea is to be a "Bride of Christ" isn't it....so it's a sorta analogous situation to my comments about actively wanting to be "married" - as opposed to not wanting to be "single"????

Your Prioress will know as well that you are very much at an age where the average woman is thinking seriously about whether to get married or no/whether to have children or no - and she wants to be sure and certain you would never regret not having those things that can be very important to some women.

From what I can see (only a very small part of the picture 'tis true) - I think your Prioress is doing this with your welfare very much in mind and is very much hoping you will take this full year "Out" so she can see you are quite "settled" in your mind about all this.

I can see to some extent why you might have always felt "in the world - but not of it" - and actually my first thought there was "it's just a matter of degree to some extent to myself". In a rather different way/for a rather different reason - I can empathise with that to an extent, as I am personally in the Transition Movement (ie a large/growing group of people who realise that we are all about to head into Post Peak Oil territory as a Society - as the whole basis our society has been built on (ie oil) is about to become scarcer and scarcer and....etc) and our way of life is going to have to change in many ways (hopefully eventually for the better:D). I first realised this back in the 1970s and have felt VERY VERY isolated for years in some ways - with knowing this on the one hand and my outright refusal to get married for the "wrong" reasons on the other hand (not a common stance for my generation). It is only now - where many other people won't get married for the "wrong" reasons either and a growing number of other people realise that our way of life is changing that I have quite a lot of "company" on my road through Life. So - what I'm saying is "there are a variety of reasons for not being in step with others/feeling in the world but not of it - not just "religious vocation" ones". In my case - its because I was ahead of my time - and that was quite a lonely position to be in - and I'm glad I'm not in that position any more (as I didn't like being in a position where few other people thought the same way...so I'm glad of the fact that many others now do so too:D).

So - I DO hope I havent offended you by phrasing things badly - but I've used the best words I could think of to express myself here.

I have been reading this thread with great interest although I havent posted before. I think that the post above is very wise, thought provoking, and sums up my feelings on the matter too. I am RC and very much respect the women who can join an enclosed order and not look back, but I imagine they are few and far between, and maybe those that can do that are running from something, not to something, if you get my drift. The Mother Superior will have years of experience at deciding who is ready for such a committment and who is not, she will have your best interests at heart. Try to enjoy your year out, have life experiences that may settle your mind, maybe travel if finances permit.

Better to do this now than have a crisis of faith years down the line. I know a former nun, and she found it very ,very difficult adapting to the world again after 15 years in a convent when she realised she had made the wrong choice at too young an age.

I wish you all the luck and prayers in the world.

Savvy_Sue

I'm so glad Ceridwen said what she did about marriage, and doing things for the right reasons rather than because we don't like the alternatives. I've been trying to say something similar myself but have given up several times.

daska wrote: »

From experience I know that wherever you go you take yourself with you. Is it possible that one of the reasons you're back in the world is to enable you to learn to be content wherever you are? Not all nuns enter enclosed orders - some are very happy without a habit and working alone. They would probably argue that they are not of the world even though they live very much in the world. I'm not for one moment suggesting that you should want to work like this or that it's an ideal to aspire to, just that being 'not of the world' doesn't seem to me to be a good reason for not being happy in the world.

And this was all good stuff too. Although I take issue with the idea that it's only monks and nuns who are 'in the world but not of it', because ALL Christians have that calling - Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come and Do not be conformed to this world, anyone? And obviously some who aren't Christians feel the same way.

Thing is, when I was at University, I was going to be a missionary, definitely, certainly, doing Bible translation. That hasn't happened, but I don't think either that I got it horribly wrong, or that I had it wrong then. At that time, I couldn't see any alternative - God showed me a few, and I chose.

God wants the best for you, faith, but he also wants you to choose, not feel constrained.