From the convent....

The sisters of the Community of St. Francis live in a home with many bedrooms, a chapel, library, office, sewing room, and meeting space in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. The rhythm of the house is defined and simple. Tables are laid out with the basics and not much hangs around the house that is beyond necessary (except for a television which I have only seen used for an exercise video).

In-between the silence there is humanity of the most ordinary kind. Initially I assign anyone in a habit, collar or robe undue wisdom in all areas, as if they were immediately able to transcend the stickier parts of being human when they take their vows. This of course is not true. Even the holiest of people who take vows or hold authority in a community of faith are working towards an ideal. The sisters in the Community of St. Francis have accepted vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. I have felt more at home with the sisters than I imagined, being they are just as broken, traveling a similar path but with extra promises to God and each other. I learned at dinner tonight that this community is the only female Episcopalian order of Franciscans in the United States.

Silence and solitude intimidate me and many other busy, Martha type, people. I’m not sure what lies beneath my full and productive life. Who am I when those actions are gone? Who am I when I don’t need to buy groceries, navigate traffic, change the radio station, or choose what to eat for dinner? Who am I without a job, church, community, a garden, a bicycle, a playlist or a blog? Who am I then? I hardly want to look and see what is left. What is left is still revealing itself.

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:24,25

St. Francis told Clare she would have to know how to die on the cross with Christ. ‘The Little Flowers of St. Clare’ describes her “death”, beginning with a departure from conventional life and her family, then her disrobing and the cutting of her hair at the alter of Our Lady of the Angels, as the monks sang the office of the Dead. She was “made a hostage of heaven”. Clare took the step away from this world and offered herself to God. Where have I stepped away from this world? What kind of death have I accepted for myself? There are many parts of my being that already seemed oriented towards a religious life- those are through grace and not of my own will, but where is it that I have taken the next step? I would be scared to see what were to happen if I prayed with Clare and Francis to help me take those steps. I certainly would be frightened of following in their examples.