Badass nuns through the ages

I'm tired, and I have a headache, but I had this notion on Sunday and I feel that if I don't get it out there now, it will die a silent death with the majority of my other ideas. That's how it is with ideas. They sort of coalesce in the back of your brain, flit about a bit, and then just dissipate, never touching even for an instant the world outside your scull. Occasionally two of them will bump into each other, have a very brief good time together, and a third idea will emerge, but then all three of them die anyway so it's really no great matter. No, most ideas never go anyhere or amount to anything. Maybe that's why I do this. I think if I get my ideas out of my brain and into a slightly more permanent medium, then at least that there's a chance that someone else will do something with them, even if I don't. (Bare in mind that's not a licence do do what you will with my ideas, all willy-nilly like. If you use one or do anything with it that earns a profit, I expect to be properly compensated in cash or crack.)

Here's the idea I had on Sunday:

I was at Sr. Pain-In-The-Ass's golden jubilee. (For all you Philistines out there, that means she's been a nun for 50 years.) Mostly it was boring. The Mass was appalling (third worst homily I've ever heard in my life), and the reception consisted of a bunch of people I've never met before accosting me with hugs and making it knownt that they knew all about my life in remarkable detail, thanks to Sr. PITA. It was disconcerting at the very least. The day had some up sides though. (Oh, I forgot to mention the food. It sucked.) For one thing, I got to see my great uncles Hank and Frank. (I'm not making that one up; those are their real names.) The surviving brothers of my late maternal grandmother, Hank and Frank are really the only cool relatives I've got. They're old crotchety Polish men who smoke like chimneys, drink like Churchil, and are two of the nicest, funniest guys ever. I love my uncles. They're truly great, but I hardly ever get to see them. (The last time they graced my presence was at my grandmother's funeral back in 98.) On Sunday Frank announced that he'd cut back on his smoking. My mom said that's wonderful, how much have you cut back? He said about 2 inches-- I used to smoke the long cigarettes, and now I smoke the shorter ones! Ha! Gotta love that man. So seeing the uncles was good.

The other good thing was this idea I had. (I hope you don't think I'm trying to wind you up. It's not all that profound or anything, it's just this thought that occurred to me.) The thing is, I grew up around the clergy. I went to Catholic schools, I had several nuns for teachers, I went to Mass twice a week at least, we had priests over for dinner, and two of my aunts are nuns. (That's gotta be about as much Catholicism as anyone can handle.) Despite that, it was mostly my aunt Sr. PITA that shaped my perception of people of the cloth. I kind of assumed that most nuns were like her: well intentioned, but slightly dithery. The majority of nuns I met in school reinforced this theory. There was the occasional exception, like Sr. Kateri, but I figured she was the rare, level-headed oddity. I figured most nuns took vows because they couldn't look after themselves, and the order provided a secure community that would shelter them from the world. And my image of convents was very much like that of the anti-Christian Bradley, author of The Mists of Avalon, who portrays convents as stone cubby-holes where devout, simple-minded (nearly synonymous conditions in Bradley's eyes), fearful women hid from the harsh realities of life and sang chants and sewed pretty things.

And then I went to this jubilee celebration. There were lots of nuns celebrating jubilees, from 25th to 75th. They organized and ran the whole thing. There was a priest to celebrate Mass, but he was alone. Any other priests or bishops in attendance had to sit with the congregation. They weren't invited to concelebrate, as is the standard practice, because the Mercians don't like their fucntions to be dominated by men. Aside from the consecration, they don't have much use for men, and it only takes one man to do that, so why have a bunch of men at the alter standing there looking important when they're not contributing, right? Right.

These weren't well-intentioned dithering women who took orders because they were seeking a caretaker or a shelter. I looked at the sisters gathered around the altar, and I was amazed at the confidence, the competence, the charisma they exuded. These were not fearful women. They were the very opposite. They were fearless. They take no shit from men. They are absolutely convinced there isn't a thing to be done on this planet that can't be done by a woman. I spoke with some of them. These women run hospitals, they run some of the best schools in the state, they do hard work in hard environments. I have ethical issues with missionary work, but I acknowledge it's inherent danger and difficulty. There were woman who have traveled the world, who have been to its shittiest corners, who have, very literally, cleansed the wounds of lepers (it still occurs in Africa periodically). I met women who have been to prisons, Haiti, Mozambique, Afganistan, El Salvador, Sudan, and Detroit. These women run food banks and shelters, they've been held up at gunpoint, they been attacked, assaulted, and abused.

The Sisters of Mercy are dedicated to serving the poor, sick, and ignorant, and they do it in a way that is not condescending, but nourishing and life-affirming. They used to be quite a conservative order, but my mom explained that during Vatican II they took a left turn and kept on going. They don't wear habits. There are no rules for their clothing save it must be modest, and they only jewelry they may wear is the the cross of Mother MacAuley, who founded the order. I saw nuns with deep, leathery tans, silver hair worn in short, spikey dos, and wearing batik caftans from India and Pakistan. I saw nuns in crisp blue suits and starched bouses that would have camoflaged them on the floor of the Senate. I saw nuns in weather-beaten khakis and jackets that were probably the best clothes they could wear in a ghetto without being instantly mugged. These women were hiding from nothing. They were not seeking protection. They were seeking out and confronting those from whom the rest of society seeks protection: the poor, the violent, the mentally ill, the HIV victims, the lepers, child-soliders, and child runaways.

All this was rather a revelation, and it got me wondering about covents in Europe in the middle ages. Perhaps those women were just as strong, just as fearless. Perhaps they joined convents (the ones who joined voluntarily, not the ones who were given as gifts to the convent as infants) because it was the one place where they didn't have to be dependent on men. They wove tapestries and tended gardens and even livestock. Did they sell these goods? Did they have business ventures? Our usual image of religious persons in the middle ages is of monks and friars out doing good, and timid, cloistered nuns shut up with their needles and thread. I would like to know more about the life of monastic women. I would like to look finacial records, tax scrolls, and any monetary records of how the convents were run. I would like to see what, if any, work the nuns did outside the wall, such as running hospices. I could be very wrong here, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that the nuns of the midde ages were occasionally, if not often, very much like the Mericans I saw on Sunday: smart, determined, capable women who cower before no one and go out and do the dirty work that needs doing.