Dedicated to God (37 page)

A few months after photographing the procession from the rooftop, I met with Sister Maria Deo Gratias and told her that I was still realizing their trust in me. I explained that when others learned of this project, I was often asked if I wanted to become a nun. Not missing a beat, Sister Maria Deo Gratias exclaimed, “You would have to become Catholic first!” I said that I had felt no such pressures from the nuns. Then I asked why the community decided to let me in. Sister Maria Deo Gratias told me what others in her community had said before—that it was a major exception. A few months later, the community held elections. Mother Miryam had served her term limit as Mother Abbess, and she needed to take a break from her position. The Vicaress, Sister Maria Deo Gratias, was elected Mother Abbess. She mailed me a card with a drawing of Saint Francis on the front. Inside, she articulated the answer to the question that so many had posed: Why did they allow me in? Mother Deo Gratias says,

You have a beautiful way of making people feel “at home” with you. Being a good listener, you are able to pick up and perceive what is being said in a true way and are not afraid to ask about what you might not understand. You have a genuine sensitivity to handle precious things shared with you in a respectful and reverent way. In interviewing you have a good way of drawing out what may be of interest for your project without doing it in a prying manner. If the person hesitates in sharing something, you are very good about leaving it go, even if you would have wished otherwise. You are so careful not to intrude—so sensitive to the situation at the time. We were so impressed with you when you came into the enclosure—our sacred space—in keeping the atmosphere of silence. In choir and in the refectory you took the pictures in such a wonderful way, wishing not to disturb what was going on in there. In all the places you had a way of going about it that did not draw attention to yourself.

Sister Maria Deo Gratias has mentioned that a true friendship formed in the aftermath of my car accident en route to the monastery in 2009. While driving on icy roads to the monastery early one foggy winter morning, I was in a head-on collision; I broke my back, sustaining a compression fracture to my vertebrae. The nuns could offer support through prayers, she told me; this was their mission.

In my first visit to the monastery several weeks after that car accident, it dawned on me the concessions the nuns had made to allow me to undertake this project. In the hallway of the cloister, Sister Sarah Marie told me the nuns were praying for me. (A young woman I knew during the six years that she considered joining this monastic community told me that she never entered the cloistered monastery until the day she became a postulant.) “I know,” I told Sister Sarah Marie. “You’re wonderful. Thank you.” I repeated what I had told a friend: If I’m going to be in an accident, I’m glad it happened en route to the monastery because the nuns would suspect something amiss, and pray. Or, I told Sister Sarah Marie, maybe you just assumed I was running late, as usual. Sister Sarah Marie smiled, tears in her eyes. She told me that the morning of my accident she had prayed to the Archangel Raphael, patron of travelers. She said that she always prayed to the Archangel Raphael when she knew I was traveling. In fact, she said, she and the other nuns prayed for me every day since my first visit to the monastery. I was stunned.

Mother Miryam found me in the hall a moment later. She underwent knee replacement surgery the same day as my car accident; she phoned
me several times from her hospital room as we both recuperated. Mother Miryam told me by phone that she was eager to start physical therapy, eager to progress, eager to return to the monastery, eager to see the community’s cat, which she admitted she spoiled. She shared all this, and then she told me we would learn patience together as we contended with our limitations.

In the monastery that day, the Mother Abbess and I walked slowly down the dark corridor together. If she noticed my tears, she did not mention them. “Two cripples,” she said. We laughed.

Acknowledgments

At times as I have worked on this project, my life has begun to mirror aspects of the cloistered nuns’ lives. I appreciate silence, find myself withdrawing from aspects of popular culture, and realize that I have adopted the nuns’ dedication and devotion.

A constellation of individuals—mentors, friends, and family—and organizations have been instrumental in the development of this work as I ride these phases of retreat and engagement with the outside world.

I am incredibly grateful to Steve Rowland, who not only is technically astute but also has an empathetic spirit that is a source of inspiration and guidance. He values the nuns’ ideals. I trust his counsel.

Peter Maguire availed himself to inquiries throughout the process of interviews, writing, and the book contract. His input was precise and substantial.

Anthony Bannon enabled me to articulate my vision for the images and to refine my photographic approach.

In the early stages of the manuscript, Carlee Tressel Alson was reliable and tenacious; her gracious feedback improved the work and her friendship is invaluable.

Friar Benet Fonck OFM and Sister Joan Mueller, both authors with busy schedules, made time to explain the intricacies of the Franciscan lineage and the Poor Clare Colettine order, Mueller having entered the Rockford Poor Clares’ Corpus Christi Monastery and experienced cloistered monastic life.

I am very thankful for all project support, including from the Illinois Arts Council, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Puffin Foundation, and SHURE, Inc.

Anna Belle Nimmo has been like a fairy godmother.

After the car accident en route to the monastery, a number of foundations that assist visual artists and writers intervened, creating a very welcome safety net.

Months after that accident, the women I met on a writers’ retreat at Ghost Ranch became my lovely and supportive community.

With the manuscript complete, Cynthia Read rallied forces. Donald A. Ritchie opened doors. And Nancy Toff blazed the final trail to bring this book into being, moving the manuscript from acceptance through production, and correcting, with mild amusement, my penchant for malapropisms.

It seems now that a clear line can be drawn between this book and my high school teacher, Pat Toth, who fed my interest in writing and other cultures, supplying me with reading material such as folklore from around the world.

Throughout adolescence, my sister Fairlight was like a highly specialized film librarian; she screened—and sometimes even let me join her in viewing—Jean-Claude Van Damme flicks, musicals, and classics.
The Nun’s Story
, with Audrey Hepburn, made a lasting impact on me, and probably ignited my desire to understand the religious vocation and the women who heed that calling. Fairlight’s perspective helped shape the way I processed and produced this book.

I have also been aided by the expertise of Eric J. Palmer; the generosity of my newest sister, Angela Angelovska Wilson; and the presence of Julie Swanson, Kimberly Lamm, Laura Turner, Megan Coleman, Alicia Eisenbise, and Clare Rosean.

My parents introduced me to religion—sharing their childhood encounters with Judaism and Catholicism, and the Protestant faith they chose to embrace. Because of them, I learned moxie and humility, qualities integral to my approach to ethnography, art, and life.

I am especially appreciative of my two creative younger brothers, Isaac and Aaron, for their unrelenting assistance and support.

Finally, this ongoing eight-year endeavor is only possible because the Poor Clare Colettine nuns in Rockford, Illinois, allowed me to enter their world on occasion. Because of them I have been “changed for good” and “for the better.”

Appendix: Interviewees

The nuns selected pseudonyms to be used in place of their actual religious names. The nuns also chose pseudonyms for their childhood names, which are used instead of their actual birth names.

Notes

1
. Michael Frisch,
A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).

2
. “Displacement and Community,” Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region annual conference, April 20, 2011.

3
. Antjie Krog,
Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998), 64.