It's Not About the Clothes

When I realized that I was called to monastic life, the last thing on my mind was the effect that would have on my wardrobe! That’s as it should be, so it came as quite a shock to me how strongly some people feel about what sisters wear.

I’ll give a little historical detail to begin with: When our founding sisters reached Central Minnesota in 1857, they wore a traditional habit with full veil. With few modifications, sisters wore that until the Second Vatican Council asked religious orders to go back to their roots, find the heart of their tradition and work on ways to express that authentically in the late 20^th century. It was during this period that a decision was taken to allow sisters to experiment. Some retained their habit, some modified it and, eventually, some did as St. Benedict suggests in the Rule and began to wear clothing that is from the locality. Essentially, this meant they wore ordinary clothes. By the time I entered in 2007, most sisters had given up the habit and new entrants did not have the option of adopting it.

None of this was a big deal for me. I wanted to seek God. I didn’t (and don’t) care much what I wear while I’m doing that. I don’t think God cares either. God is more concerned with what is in our hearts than with our clothes. It has, therefore, quite shocked me that, at times, people will truly attack us for not wearing a habit, as if the clothes are the only thing count. It saddens me that kindness, love for God and our neighbor and a genuine desire to seek God seem to count for nothing against what we wear.

Having said that, I would be less than honest if I didn’t confess that what I wear is a definite part of my monastic journey and the search for God. I have always liked clothes. I had a mother who dressed well and liked clothes and a father who was never backward at complimenting my mother on how she looked. Clothes mattered in my family, but more in the sense of creating an attractive atmosphere in which to live, rather than being the thing that defined you.

When I came to the monastery, I was comfortable with my own style and, happily, I didn’t need to make much adjustment in what I wear. As a sister, you obviously have to be quite modest in dress. You don’t want to look as if you are trying to attract a mate but that doesn’t mean you have to look a frumpy mess all the time! I wasn’t required to alter my style especially but I’ve found over the years that I want to. Considering occasionally what does and doesn’t feel right to wear, and why, has become part of my monastic journey.

I think my endeavors are based on trying to simplify. Over the years, I’ve noticed that I wear fewer trinkets. At one time, I often used to wear a cross. Now I don’t. I wear my profession ring and earrings but I’m noticing that the earrings are getting smaller and less noticeable. At the same time, I find I can take pleasure in seeing someone else look dressed up. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. I don’t have a desire to make everyone be the same. We are individuals, making our own way to God, and some of our uniqueness shows in our clothes choices. That’s fine!

Something that really pleases me is that I think clothing is an area where I have truly become less judgmental. Living with my sisters, who display a wide range of clothing preferences, I’ve realized that love, kindness and faith are not modified in any way by the clothes you choose. That’s really freeing. I feel called to simplify many parts of my life. I feel I need to cut away distractions and “extras” in many areas, including what I wear. I accept that others sisters may not feel that need in the same way, yet God loves each of us equally.

This is how I’d sum up the clothes quandary: My clothes choices can help me in my journey toward God, but the journey isn’t dictated by the clothes.

Karen Rose, OSB                                                 February 22, 2019

Peace and Love: Part 2

“Never turn away when someone needs your love.” Rule of Benedict (Chapter 4)

There was a time in monastic life when sisters were very restricted as to how often they could visit their family, “particular friendships” within the monastery were discouraged (i.e., there were no BFFs) and sisters didn’t make friends outside the monastery. I wasn’t a sister at the time but, as I see it, there was a rationale there. It was the idea that by committing to religious life you gave up everything so that you could focus entirely on following Christ with no distractions.

However, sisters move with the times and there is a softer approach now which recognizes that, as humans, we need connections with other people; we need to love and be loved. How that’s lived out varies from monastery to monastery and how we live may look different from how it did in the past, but I think underlying our life and our approach to relationships is still the belief that Christ comes first and that expressions of love and care toward others are part of how we follow the Gospel and Benedictine path of loving.

How does that pan out in daily life? Well, we are encouraged to maintain family relationships and close friendships and it’s fine to have friends outside the monastery. However, I find that it’s quite complex to keep a balance here. For instance, major religious feasts call me to be with my community. What are we if we don’t celebrate Easter and Christmas together?  Yet it’s a real tug at the heart to be absent from people with whom I have lifelong connections and also to have to live with the knowledge that I spoiled other people’s Christmases by coming here. Yet, I truly want to be with my monastic community because these times are part of the cement that bonds us together as monastics and differentiate us from a group of women simply choosing to live together.

Another significant lesson I have learned is that there are some people, including sisters, you like and naturally feel drawn to and, actually, that’s okay. These people will be your friends, the people with whom you recreate. However, community doesn’t work if you focus solely one person. You have to be open to others and you have to care about each and every one, whether or not you see them as chums. You can be close, but you can’t be exclusive. I learned that you can’t choose who you like, but can choose to be generous with your love and at least try to include everyone.

This brings me to celibacy. Celibacy is included in the monastic promise of “fidelity to the monastic way of life.” I think this is probably something that each person handles differently. For me, the challenge is that it’s hard to give up that one-to-one relationship, the specialness of joining yourself with one other person. I love the theory of sharing my love equally with sisters, of channeling to the whole world the energy that would usually go into the one primary relationship, but it’s one of those things that sounds aspirational in theory and turns out to be very difficult in practice. I guess, though, that’s one of the points of monastic life: challenge yourself to be greater than you are, try to want what’s best for others and just keep going along the particular path you have chosen.

 

Karen Rose, OSB                                               February 8, 2019

 

Peace and Love: Part 1

“Peace and love” sounds like a hippy phrase from the 70s! However, you could say that St. Benedict had already called dibs on the concept in the 6^th century when he wrote his Rule, the small book which Benedictine monastics use to guide their daily life in community.

One of my favorite quotes from the Rule occurs in Chapter 4, “The Tools for Good Works”: “Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away when someone needs your love.” It encapsulates what I want to say in my blogs this week and next. Peace and love matter to every human being, but when you live in community, they take on a particular significance.

This week, I’m going to concentrate on peace. When people visit monasteries, they often comment on the sense of peace and calm. They’re right. I know that because I’ve experienced it myself when a guest in monasteries.

Never be fooled in believing that the sense of peace simply happens. It doesn’t. Somewhere in the background, there will be a band of nuns or monks working like crazy to create and maintain the peaceful atmosphere. Peace is hard work. What makes it even harder is that it can only be authentic when it’s not an illusion, but an expression of something deeper. This is where I have found it gets really challenging.

Living in a monastic community means that I live with a group of women who are all committed to seeking God through the Benedictine way. We have this in common, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have differences. Some of those are minor, like preferring red to green. Yet, even something like that can be a challenge when you live with someone who always wants things to be not quite the way you would choose. In order to be at peace, you have learn to let go sometimes, but to let go graciously, in a way that doesn’t make the other person feel diminished by your sacrifice. At the same time, you can’t just let go of everything on principle because sometimes your opinion is a valuable and necessary part of the total community wisdom. It a tricky balancing act and you have to work on it every day in order to do your part to make peace a reality.

Maintaining peace is an art and a commitment which lies at the heart of monastic life. Without peace, you can’t truly love.

Karen Rose, OSB 

The Other Side the Fence

I cannot state too emphatically how different it felt when I realized the significance of making perpetual profession. I felt very well prepared to make the lifelong monastic promises of stability, fidelity to the monastic way of life and obedience on July 11, 2012, and I was certain that this was where God was calling me in life. It came as shock to me when I realized how different it felt to have crossed the line and to be living on the other side the fence.

The first six weeks were a honeymoon. I felt elated, as if something was completed and I was stepping into the perfect life. I knew that everything wouldn’t always go my way, but I was sure those would only be blips and would simply help me to become a better person, as I sailed calmly into a deeper relationship with God.

The first cloud reached the horizon when someone causally mentioned something about “the professed sisters” and I thought, “That’s me! I’m one of them now. Forever. What have I done?” I suspect this is a feeling common to anyone who makes a big life commitment, such as getting married or having a baby. It’s certainly something that I’ve learned other monastics have experienced. It DOES NOT HELP knowing that other people feel that way. It was so intense, so personal. I’ve only got one life and this one life is the only life over which I have any control. I felt that I’d committed myself, and it wasn’t exactly that I wished I hadn’t, just that it seemed so enormous.

I have a degree in philosophy and theology. I recall doing a lot of study on the nature of promising because it is so foundational to many ethical codes. I had always believed theoretically in the importance of promising, of vowing to do something, but I was completely unprepared for how significant promising would seem when I discovered I had made forever promises, which I was now not entirely sure I wanted to keep forever.

It would be untrue to say that I have spent the years since perpetual profession in a state of perpetual unhappiness and uncertainty, but I have had distinct periods of desperately wanting to go back to my “normal” life. I’m sure I’ll be sharing some of that in future blogs. Right now, I want to stress how significant the notion of having made those promises of stability, fidelity to the monastic way of life and obedience have been in keeping me here, keeping me on the Benedictine, monastic path of seeking God.

I’ll end with a word of advice: Never promise anything if you are not absolutely certain because, even if you are certain, it is going to be a challenge to keep the promise!

Karen Rose, OSB                                                    February 1, 2019

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