Finding Home

It happened Monday, and I never expected it to. Those words, out of my mouth.

My family is a strange one. My parents divorced almost a year ago after 40+ years of marriage. My sister is the Wonder Woman of a family that has three stepkids and also two people with special needs. Her life is busy and FULL. She and I have our parents and two aunts that will need care as the years progress.

Some of my Protestant friends assumed upon my becoming Orthodox Christian, I would soon become a nun. Truth told, I know that for me, to leave the world and my sister to care for the entirety of our family by herself seems one of the most grievous evils I could commit. So being monastic has not been a thought in my head. Plus, black is not THAT slimming!

At a women's retreat, Bishop Basil made a statement that scandalized me. "There are only two ways of life that are blessed by the Church. They are marriage and monasticism. I don't mean to say that you cannot be single and be a Christian; it is just much harder." He went on give examples of why that's true, and they had a lot to do with accountability and the natural selfishness that is built in to every singleton's existence. We don't HAVE to do ANYTHING. I've lived alone for years. Even though I don't love it, there is something fantastic about being able to go home and shut the door when you are done for the day. I joke that unscheduled naps and unlimited bubble baths are the compensations of the loveless spinster schoolmarm--but it's true.

But I have always missed having a home. By this, I always thought I meant having a family. With my parent's divorce, my first thought was, "I have no family." And it's true.

An abbess of an Orthodox women's monastery led our last women's retreat. I had never spent any time with a nun before. My idea of nuns are from the Sound of Music. I often suspect that becoming a novice would be a great way to meet a handsome baron; so you see how ill-informed I am. I was relieved to find that I really liked this abbess. She also had come straight from two weeks at the bedside of an ailing family member. I found that connection to her family heartening.

It was only after the retreat that I realized that I live in a manner more isolated and devoid of 'home' than even monastics.

Eastern Christianity is a much less individualistic approach to faith than the one I grew up in. It's said that when one priest was asked if Jesus was his personal Savior, he said, "No, I like to share Him." We believe that each person is made in God's image and we are to look for the health of our own souls, as well as those around us. "Blessed is he who regards everyone as God after God," Evagrius of Pontus says. In his excellent book "Short Trip to the Edge," Scott Cairns embodies the strength of this sentiment in the Church with these words: "Ourselves, alone is finally a very undesirable circumstance, perhaps even a quintessentially satanic circumstance."

I woke up Saturday morning to the news that one of my friends had been tonsured a monk earlier that day. I've never had a friend become monastic before, the other monks in my life were monks when I met them. Although we message often, it was unexpected to myself and others close to him that live in town.

I was dismayed and amused at the irony that the first feeling that ripped through me at the news was the EXACT same jealousy that attends my selfish thoughts when a friend gets engaged; "I am alone." He had found rest and happiness; he had found home.

Which leads me back to Monday. In chatting with a dear friend who comes from a more individualistic model of faith, she asked me THE question that all singletons must finally answer, or answer daily, as the case may be: "If you knew that you never were going to get married, would you be content? Could you let God be enough?"

And that's when I knew; and the answer flowed out of me like water. The answer I never thought I'd give. If I knew I  would never be married, I would probably would look into becoming a nun. In the end, the question is neither single nor married. The answer to all questions is home.

Home in Him. Home with each other. Whatever that looks like.

I hope I find it someday.

Monasticism, for a Moment

 Full disclosure: I've never been to a convent, except for one time in high school when I gypped school and was so curious about the convent at St. Joseph that I walked straight up to the doors, bold as brass, and asked to use the restroom. They were kind enough to let me do so. I was greeted with a very cool pink-and-black checkerboard floor, and could hear beautiful voices singing prayers down the hallway. Everything I know about monasticism has come from reading or talking with those that know more than I. Rudiments of understanding. That's all I have.

I gave a talk on St. Brigid Saturday night. If you don't know about her, you should check her out! She was an amazingly generous, holy woman who founded cenobitic monasticism in Ireland. (Essentially, she was the beginning of communities of monks and nuns, rather than monks and nuns living as solitaries.) Irish monastics are responsible for the Book of Kells, preserving Western literature at crucial periods of time, things like that. This was a woman who accomplished a LOT, with long, long lasting effects.

During the talk, I forgot the word monastery. I turned to my friend and said, "You know, that place with the monks?" This is how my ex-Protestant brain works. Teflon in regard to monasticism.

I am a Christian today because of a novitiate at an abbey... or at least the movie version of one. I "asked Jesus into my heart" in 2nd grade because I was dancing around in a field of wheat as if I were Maria VonTrapp. In that moment, I realized that the wheat and sun were REAL, that God was REAL, that He made them, and I wanted Him more than anything.

I have been shocked and appalled at several different Protestant friends who have assumed that now that I am Orthodox, I will want to become a nun. I don't. I am the girl that prayed steadily throughout high school and my 20s that Jesus would NOT come back until I got to have sex!! I'm the girl who, when I rededicated my life to Christ at 16, struck this "deal" in prayer with God: "Dear God, I am all Yours. Forever. But if I am not married by the time I'm 35, I'm going to go have sex anyway. I love you. I just want You to know my plans ahead of time."

I'm not the only person who grew up Protestant who has no regard (or context) for monasticism. I grew up believing that a person is to love God, and love people. For me, loving people meant being of service to others. To be useful. And I've tried to do that.

Last summer, I was driving around the St. Louis Arch talking on the phone (I know, I know) with a former mentor of mine who is Protestant. We were arguing viewpoints about monasticism... her thoughts were identical to mine. But with her, I found myself arguing the other side. I have been told that being a monk or nun is about prayer. It is true that all Christians are called to be joyous always and pray continually. The call to pray is the same whether you are a monastic or not. In a discussion on prayer, I closely questioned a monk one day... about many things. He agreed that the call to prayer for Christians is the same, but said that monks become so because they need separation from the world to live that life. He considers being a Christian... and truly Christian... truly living a life of prayer... in the world much harder than being a monk.

And I believe he's right.

It is in Orthodoxy that I have encountered an idea that would have never occurred to my Protestant mind, that of prayer as service. That prayer itself is just as valid of a way of loving God and loving people as physical or emotional usefulness is. Until I came upon this concept and had been convinced of its truth, I had seen monasticism (and in some ways, prayer) as a wholly selfish act. But how can that be? Who has more power to serve, act, and move? Me? Or God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth?

I have heard it said that it is the prayers of monks that keep the world spinning on its axis... that we would have descended into fire long before now if not for them.They say that a person can become prayer.

Prayer... for the life of the world.

I've always prayed that God would keep me alive only as long as I still  had the ability to pray. I envision myself in a bed somewhere, a shriveled, white-haired wisp of a thing. A little furnace of prayer.

So, as you see, I really have believed in prayer as service all along.

May it be ever more so.