A few years ago, I visited a friend in a Catholic hospital. A convent resided on the same campus. Getting out of my car, I saw a nun at in high window, doing little tasks in her room. I had young kids, a house, and very busy job at the time, but I felt a wave of longing for this nun’s simple, one-room life. Lately, a feast of feeling about a nun’s life has returned to me. I’ve been re-reading a nun of the early modern period, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695). Sor Juana lived with a freedom unknown to most women of her time. She wrote and published philosophy and poetry. She ran a salon out of her cell. Back then, the life of a nun allowed a woman to be free. Is that still true? I think freedom does require something of a nun's life. You have to set aside lots of time to be quiet. You can’t get swallowed up by a business career, by a gang of acquaintances, or a suffocating spouse. (Jesus, a nun's spouse, is nowhere near as demanding as many human versions.) You want to sit down now and then, to notice your pain and your cravings and, yep, your sins. Above all, you have to work on humility and service, even when your whole being clamors for fame and approval. That is my own peculiar cross to bear. I won’t be free until I replace the desire for prestige with the desire to be humble. In her writing, Sor Juana urges us again and again to shun vanity, ego-driven hope, and pride. Thanks, Sor Juana, for pointing the way.
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AuthorDana Delibovi-- Archives
May 2022
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