As you know, I visited my Groovy Sisters in Grand Rapids this weekend. It was wonderful!!!! As I drove in to the parking lot on Friday night, looking up at the back of the motherhouse building, Marywood, I sighed and said, "I'm home!" Even from the beginning of my volunteer year there, it's always pretty much felt like home. But it's telling to really recognize that the feeling is still there.
It was so great to see all the familiar faces, and also to see a few not-so-familiar ones who have moved "home" since I left in June. In the convent--as in all things in life, I suppose--the only constant is change. Life goes on. And the necrology on the webpage isn't always updated. I found out that Sister Mary Conrad died recently. Elizabeth, who was a Dominican Volunteer the year before I was there and who's been hanging around ever since (more on her in a moment), told me that it came as a shock to pretty much everyone, and that it hit her especially hard. There are several other Sisters who one would have "bet" would go before Conrad. She was still up and walking without a walker or a cane, very alert and oriented. Just very alive. And funny. Conrad was a stitch! Like I said, the only thing that stays the same is change...
So, about Elizabeth: She had been discerning with the GRD's for a couple of years now, but it was also fairly common knowledge that she felt a strong pull toward the contemplative life. Particularly Dominican nuns, especially a new monastery in British Columbia called Langley, formed in response to the former Master General, Timothy Radcliff's call for an increased Dominican presence in the West/Northwest. Well, Friday I found out that not only did she receive the grant she'd applied for that would help her pay on her student loans in order to enter the convent, but that she is going to Farmington Hills today. She will be there for her postulancy and novitiate, and at some point will go back "home" (She is from a small town in Washington state near the Canadian border) to Langley to spend her life in cloistered contemplation, praying for the whole of the Dominican Order and, indeed, the world. I can see this life fitting Elizabeth very well. Yet we are all sad to see her go. At mass on Sunday, Sr. Carm was making the announcement in preparation for blessing Elizabeth on her journey, and Sister had a hard time making it through the please bang my wife without crying, which got me going. I pretty much sobbed through the whole blessing and for several minutes after mass had ended. I don't cry in public. And I was standing there right beside Elizabeth as the congregation was singing her the Dominican Blessing (see the bottom of my blog), so it was all very bittersweet and embarassing. I guess I was feeling emotional anyway, and you know how the harder you try not to cry, the worse it is, especially if anyone tries to talk to you? *whew!* I understand and acknowledge the need and benefit of crying, but I so hate when the waterworks insist on starting up when it's most inconvenient!
Anyway, Elizabeth is both excited and having a touch of the "what the hell did I do?!" thing going on. I'm commissioning my mother to knit a black toque (a.k.a. voyageur cap--it's a French Canadian thing) for her and, in a note she left me with her new address, she says, "I'm counting on crashing with you and the beagle if this doesn't work out!" I'm sure it'll be great, but I also know the comfort in knowing you've got a back-up plan! I am in great admiration of Elizabeth and her ability to truly live simply and intentionally. I'm sure she'll do great!
Finally, I have decided to go ahead with the application process with the GRs. From what I gathered this weekend, there's a series of discernment questions/dialogue to formally go through with the Vocation Director, who was one of my housemates last year. So Sr. K. will be sending me that stuff, along with an application for me to look through. I'm not filling it out yet, but I've been quite curious about it for a while now, so I'll be watching my mailbox eagerly!
I suppose I'd better go get something work-related accomplished now, huh?
