Vacillating between large animal vet and Christian martyr, I must explain
Large animal vet, a reasonable choice
Horse crazy since the age of 2
Linda and I made plans.
We’d take over her grandparent’s farm, Chestnut Hill (this was before all the chestnut trees died of blight)
We’d both become vets
Caring for the cows and horses living in Ingleside, Maryland
Cows who licked our faces with their fat, warm tongues
We’d reach in and help mama birth her babe
Releasing the nose from afterbirth, helping direct mouth to udder
The horses … oh, the horses
We’d care for them so well that their grateful owners’d
Name foals after us
And once in a while give us one or two to raise
That was our dream
As we flopped back on the cool grass
Our plans as expansive as the bright sky overhead
Nothing, would stop us …
All this would occur of course
After we’d biked our way across Europe.
At least that was the plan.
Until I entered my religious phase
At the age of 12 I knew I had to become a nun
Was there a coincidence in the fact that my dad’s favorite niece
The one who baked him chocolate chip cookies every Christmas
Who’d been like a daughter to him all the years before I came along?
Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact
That she was a postulant in a convent in New Jersey?
We went to visit her
Awed by everything …
The convent/college on the grounds of a former manse
Nuns, enamored of the artwork that had been donated along with the property
Still, for the sake of modesty
Carefully painted soft linen draperies
Across all the private parts of the reclining (former) nudes
Along the hushed corridors
Nuns floated. I could almost see halos.
As soon as we got home, I signed up
For monthly vocational visits
To various convents around our city
There were lots.
My dad would drop me off.
Some nuns showed slide shows
Others prayed.
I fell in love with two different orders:
The first worked in Appalachia; nuns wore khakis and plaid flannel shirts
The slides showed them hiking up to remote cabins
Ministering to miners’ families
Little kids skipping by their sides.
And then I visited the cloister.
A bell at the heavy gate granted entrance into the walled fortress.
Through a grate at the door, I glimpsed a celestial face
An angelic novice smiled warmly, slowly opening the massive door
A vow of silence part of the deal.
Sitting around a worn oak table, Mother Superior read from scriptures
In the chapel, divine voices swelled heavenward
Latin hymns familiar, yet completely rebirthed in this environment.
Entranced, I was ready to sign on the dotted line
Except I also loved the missionary nuns.
What to do? What to do?
A life of prayer, hymns, making jams, kneading bread
All for the greater glory of God …
Versus …
The possibility of finding an abandoned pagan baby in the jungle
And baptizing him/her by a stream
Thus avoiding the possibility of an eternity in Limbo
(which is where all the unbaptized end up).
Chopping wood and not wearing a habit and being able to talk.
Until, surrounded by a marauding mob I would be martyred in some martyr-ish way:
Boiled in oil, crucified (upside down) … even a firing squad would get me a first-class ticket
To heaven. Martyrdom, I’d learned early on, had great bennies for the afterlife.
Then a boy named Pat kissed me
And amid the explosions going off in parts of my body
(That I had no idea had the capacity to explode like that)
I completely, and totally, and fully
Dropped the concept of becoming a nun (who becomes a martyr).
Just. Like. That.
© 2011 Marilyn Stevens
© 2011 Marilyn Stevens
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