Murky Waters Revisited

I’m resisting the temptation to go through my 2012 blog and write a “sister” blog, each corresponding with the topics I addressed at that time. If I do that, I think I might be constrained by what I shared previously and be less honest now.

That’s not to say that I don’t remember some of the blogs and I certainly refreshed my memory by reading through them when I was thinking about writing for the anniversary. Some of the blogs were very significant to me. One that stands out was called “Murky Waters,” which addressed the nature of faith. I want to write about this again as it the bedrock of my call, indeed, any call, to monastic life.

Some people have a very clearly defined faith: It’s X, Y and Z, which means you can be sure of A, B and C. I don’t believe like that. For me, the clearest thing is that faith is not knowledge. I know that 2+2=4. There are various means to demonstrate the accuracy of this fact. My belief in God is of a different order. It’s born of experience, the experience that there is something that is both within me and beyond me that is greater than I.  I draw closer, experience God more fully, the less I think and the more I open myself up in trust to mystery and darkness and not knowing.

Trust is crucial. I have to trust my instinct that the way to God is something which I can’t describe, can’t map out, can’t explain and can’t quantify. I’m struggling right now for words to convey what I mean and I’m failing to find them because God is more than I can encompass. Paradoxically, I can only become part of that “moreness” by accepting and letting the darkness of non-understanding flood through me and fill me with the Divine Presence.

In 2012, the waters of faith were murky. They are still murky in 2019. I expect them to remain murky and that is just fine.

Sister Karen Rose, OSB                                                      January 25, 2019

Happily Ever After?

Before I made perpetual profession in July 2012, I never thought about what it would be like afterwards. Everything in me was focused on the act of making profession. In theory, I knew it was not about that single act and that what I was doing was committing myself to a way of life. In practice, however, I assumed that I was simply taking the final step into “happy ever after.”

I want to make it clear that, right now, I am certainly not unhappy, but the journey to 2019 has been filled with good things and bad things, light-hearted things and challenging things. In other words, it’s been filled with life! Believe me, entering a monastery does not protect you from life’s ups and downs. You live them out in a particular context, but you continue to be called to live a real life which is by no means trouble-free.

In future weeks, I’ll be exploring some of the challenges and joys specifically associated with monastic life. This week, I’ll talk about some of the things that threw me for a loop because I’d moved a long way from home.

When I came, I imagined somehow that home would stay the same. The same people would live in the same places and it would always be there to go back to. Not so. People moved house and location; they started new careers, got married, had babies, got sick, retired; children grew up. Then people actually died. Two of my aunts and two dear friends have passed since I entered the monastery. It is hard when I miss celebrations at home, but I cannot begin to say how unspeakably difficult it is when someone close needs you and you are not there. It made me feel selfish. It seemed I’d come here and totally not considered the impact that might have on others.

I also found it difficult having no-one around who had known me as I grew up, no-one with whom I had shared memories, no-one who knew the places that were special to me. This gets better as time goes on because, having been here ten years, I’ve amassed memories and shared experiences with sisters and others who are now friends, but there is still that slight sense of loss and longing.

Conversely, when you live somewhere, you are affected by the issues and concerns of that place. I still keep up with a daily one-minute news video from the BBC, but I’m really conscious that I’m more aware of American events, politics and concerns than British ones. It’s not that I don’t care about what happens in my homeland, but I’m at one remove, I’m not experiencing it. That, too, creates a sense of loss.

Leaving Britain hasn’t been all good, but it’s certainly not all bad. I can’t say that I’m living happily ever after, but I’m certainly not living unhappily ever after. I would sum up the pluses by saying that moving to a different country has made me more sensitive as a human being, more aware of other people’s feelings and more aware of, and grateful for, the people in my life both sides of the Atlantic.

Sister Karen Rose, OSB                                                           January 18, 2019

Getting Reacquainted

On July 11, 2019, it will be ten years since I made first profession and seven years since I made perpetual profession. I decided to keep an anniversary blog on the monastery website. I shall also publish this blogs here.

SEEKING GOD: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY CONTINUES

Getting Reacquainted

My name is Karen Rose. I’m a Benedictine sister at Saint Benedict’s Monastery in Minnesota. I made first profession of monastic promises (vows) on July 11, 2009, and perpetual profession three years later on July 11, 2012. Before making perpetual profession, I wrote a blog for six months sharing my experience of why I felt called to monastic life and the ups and downs of the road. It’s now ten years since I made first profession and I decided to write a blog reflecting on my experience as a professed sister. I’ll be keeping it for six months again, so the last blog will be published on July 11, 2019.

This first week, I thought I should reacquaint you with who I am. I come from the United Kingdom. I was brought up as an Anglican, but knew from the age of 12 that I wanted to be a Catholic. I took instruction whilst a student studying philosophy and theology, and was received into the Catholic Church when I was 20. Following my BA, I worked for 18 months as a nursing assistant at a hospice in London and eventually trained as a Registered Nurse. Most of my career was spent in healthcare research, concentrating on quality of life issues for patients and families. I obtained an MSc in 1992 and a PhD in 1996. I always saw work as being something which should flow out of my faith and convictions. I guess healthcare work fulfilled that theoretically but, while I have certainly experienced great satisfaction from some of the work I did, I always felt that something was missing. I wanted more.

By 2005, I had reached a stage in my life when I knew that I wanted to simplify it, pare it down and have more space for prayer and for God. I'll just pause at this point to say that I was, in many ways, very happy. I was blessed to have close, loving and supportive relationships, opportunities to travel and recreate in ways that I found satisfying and life-giving, and work that had the potential to help others. I wouldn't describe myself as being overly religious, in the sense that I wasn't very involved in parish life and had periods when I didn’t attend church. However, I spent quite a lot of time talking to God, made a retreat occasionally and was blessed with friends who, whatever their religious belief and practice, took their inner life seriously and with whom I could explore issues about faith and the meaning of life. There just kept being this inner "voice" that was saying, "There must be something more."

So, how did I get to Saint Benedict's Monastery? I will be honest and say that for the previous ten years the thought had come to me periodically that maybe I was called to religious life, but I NEVER wanted to be a nun, so I always pushed it away with a "Why would I want to do that?" I had certainly never looked for any order to enter. If I had, I would have looked in England, so the ideas of 'monastery-me-America' were not connected in my mind. I came for a two-week stay in the monastery’s Studium program (details at www.sbm.osb.org) in the summer of 2005 to work on a research paper and to investigate some healthcare questions comparing US practice to UK practice. I never dreamed that I was coming to what would turn out to be my new home.

Sister Karen Rose, OSB      

January 11, 2019