Vocation Information
Sister Joy's Convent Files
Episode 8: I Do Not Run Aimlessly!February, 2004
The Big Day finally arrived... race day. This morning I ran 13.1 miles for the first time, in the Miami Tropical Half-Marathon. I awoke at 4:15 am and have not stopped since then. I can't even nap because the excitement and endorphins have not worn off! It was grey and drizzly all morning as we ran, but still, I got to see the most beautiful parts of Miami, including the Art Deco part of Miami Beach. I think I have said before that I have learned so much about my body by running. And not just my body, but myself, too, spiritually and emotionally and in every respect.
Start – mile 3: Body is reporting all systems go. I bid farewell to my Sisters, who valiantly arose to see my start. I jog a respectable pace, nothing to get excited about, but steady through the uphill jog across the bay to Miami Beach. On the right are some enormous cruise ships and I think about last night's homily. Father Federico compared the luxe houses on SoBe to the slums of Little Haiti. Yes, it is good to treat ourselves and enjoy homes and vacations... but at what point does indulgence become a social sin? I am excited to be a little ahead of pace but don't let myself break into a full run. After all, I have miles to go.
Mile 3-6: I gulp my first gel, concentrated nutrition that gets me going. I know it is just psychosomatic, but simply having a snack immediately makes me feel more energetic. I meet a fellow first-timer on the first leg of the Beach run and pace myself with her for awhile. She is Scientologist and training to be a minister. I am Catholic and training to be a nun. Some light cross-tradition Q&A occurs until she decides to pick up the pace. I consider praying the rosary to occupy myself but decide against it. My prayer today consists in cheering on the red-faced, discouraged-looking people who are having a hard time. We are in the back of the pack together, us slow folks. "Come on, red shorts, you can do it!" "Looking good, Palm Beach Team in Training!" This is the abundant mercy of the race. Spectators and participants alike cheer and root for the runners, joggers, and walkers. People chat amiably with folks they don't know. This is not the normal big-city Miami feel. I wonder whether shared hardship is good for a society.
Mile 6-9: Mind and cardiovascular system are still going strong. Feet, on the other hand, scream at every impact. I know from my long runs that what will matter from about mile eight on is not my fitness but my willingness to endure pain. This is when I really run into the "I feel like/I choose" disparity. Often it is good to listen to what I feel like doing. I have good instincts and when I go with my gut, I am usually glad. And right now, I feel like stopping. My body is very uncomfortable! Yet I choose to go on. Since every step hurts, I might as well run. Walking hurts, too. Currently my jog is at pace with many walkers, but I know that if I break my stride, I will go into lazy walker mode. I manage to walk only about 25% of the time.
I think about my prayer life, and the "I feel like / I choose" element there. Prayer is a part of my life where I can exert a little more willpower than in running. Yet, since I am doing this run to raise awareness about men and women in church vocations, I figure that this is prayer too. I talk to myself. "Come on, Joy. You can do this!"
Mile 9-12: I pass my former personal distance record. My longest long run was 11.4 miles, and I don't even think about it when I pass it. I am living water station to water station. Mind is still having fun and is in awe that I am doing this and so close to finishing. Body on the other hand is pretty ticked off at me! The wet is finally causing problems. Blisters are starting to form on my feet and I hope they won't rip before the finish line.
I wrestle, too, with being in the back of the crowd, at my slow pace. One the traits that has shaped me is my tendency to do only those things I know I will excel at. Luckily, my time here in Miami has helped me break that cycle. I read somewhere that "there are no prodigies in religious life." I don't know if I will excel at being a Sister. I don't know for certain if I will even be a nun! A lot can happen in the next six months of postulancy and two years of novitiate. Learning another language has also helped, giving me a great opportunity for learning how to fail gracefully.
Prayer at this point in the race is brief and to the point. "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy." I am on pace for my desired finish time and I don't understand how. I am walking a lot at this point, sucking down gel and Gatorade, and breaking into a run whenever I see a crowd that might include my community. Honestly, I don't know what I am praying for: to finish, to have the pain go away, to go faster... But I pray anyway.
Mile 12- Finish: Please please please let me finish running! I want dry clothes, I want a shower, I want food. Most of all I want to see "FINISH." I cross the line, smiling and running, to the sound of my name and my time, 5 minutes past my anticipated finish time. I hear yells of support and look over to see my Miami community rooting
me on. They are happier than I am, if that's possible. Hugs and kisses and accolades are showered on me, and I am presented with the most touching gift of spiritual and physical nourishment.... chocolate!
My sisters trudge in the mud with me to get my gear and find my friends, seminarians who are running for the same cause. It is truly pouring at this point, but no one complains. This is the secret of religious life that I want people to know about. It is the unconditional support of each member and the participation and joy of the community in her endeavors. This is not a partnership of like-minded professionals. It is, rather, a family of women devoted to loving God by loving each other (and humanity at large) as best we can. I babble on gleefully, thrilled to have finished. I find my seminarian friends and throw my arms around them. These young men, some of them just out of their teens, are happy and healthy. Whether they end up being priests or God calls them to something different, I am glad to have them as friends and allies. As our matching T-shirts proclaim, "We do not run aimlessly."
In the words of Paul to Timothy: "I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith."
Episode 9: A Wrinkle in Time
February, 2004
Sometimes prayer surprises me with its intensity and its joy. Today is one of those days which makes me realize how blessed I am to be called to holiness through Christ Jesus. I was kneeling in chapel today, during adoration, thinking about a woman who is living with us for one month as she discerns whether God is calling her to religious life. I thought back to my own discernment time and my "come and see" month and reflected on the joys of religious life that I did not anticipate. First, the quiet. Tranquility is so hard to find in a world with pagers, cellphones, email, car alarms, and car DVD players. How can we think through all the noise? Here in the convent it was a quiet day. There are busy phone days and quiet phone days and this was one of the latter, thank God. The windows are all open so there is a nice bay breeze coming in, and the only sounds are the weed whacker three houses down, the passing traffic (not much), and our footsteps on the tile floor. It's nice. Our guest lives in a big family with lots of kids and I wonder whether the silence is a welcome respite or a loathsome stranger for her. Quiet is hard to get used to, after all. You can hear yourself for once, and that isn't always comfortable.
As I pray and contemplate the vastness of God and God's love, the wonder of His guidance and peace, I experience anew how much I am loved and how grateful I am to be here. This, I realize, this life of worship, this adoration, this knowledge of a God who is everything, is the greatest gift I have ever been given. I am struck. God surpasses anything I knew to ask for! Parenthood, I think, must be like this... frustrations and joys mixed together with the occasional ecstatic realization that this little one is "flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bones." That piercing knowledge takes one's breath away; that profound, debilitating love sweeps all else aside. I am not by any stretch a mystic... sometimes I don't even like to pray. But at this moment I feel just a glimmer of eternity. It reminds me of Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, when she "gets" the tesseract, just for an instant. The understanding is slippery, and she cannot hold it for long. Yet for a slim moment she grasps this knowledge of space and time, eternity and reality, which is known as a tesseract.
Tesseracts we do not have in the Catholic faith. What we do have is Eucharist, which sews heaven and earth together in a similarly mysterious way. Today I gave Eucharist to one of our community members who has been too sick to go to Mass. What a joy and a humbling thing it is to give Jesus to another, in a palpable and renewing way. What joy it is to receive Jesus. I rue the fact that my immersion in love is as slippery as Meg's comprehension. Yet I joy in the hope that what awaits me is a union with this wonderful Union, my three-personed God. "At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love." Amen.