Went for the music, stayed for the inspiration.
New Year’s Day I found myself in a huge chapel in my hometown. The place has soaring marble pillars and seas of stained glass. It evokes tons of memories of my high school years at an all girl’s school. The Academy, we called it. My brother and sister-in-law play music there now at the Motherhouse (where all the nuns retire.) On New Year’s day, they lured me with the promise of a Jesuit priest and some of my favorite arrangements of Christmas instrumentals. With only about 6 nuns in the choir that day, it still managed to be serenely beautiful – not perfect – but lovely in it’s imperfection: my brother conducting and on clarinet, my sister on piano, a nun on flute. I sang loudly in the front row. One of the youngest at the mass, I had a stronger voice, though the high notes are long gone and singing an octave down shouldn’t be that easy. At long last I’m the tenor I wanted to be.
The chapel is large and grand and still somehow, very sincere. There were some 30 people maybe. The priest talked about the Pope’s message of immigrant tolerance and leader’s who seek power by targeting the weakest among us. He had been about 10 minutes late to mass, and my writer brain kept trying to solidify a metaphor about the church being late to speak up for Christ’s message of helping the poor and condemning tyrants for fear of sounding political. Hell, politics and social justice, how do you separate the two? It was great.
As the mass drew on, my mind was an unruly child, searching the atmosphere for symbols and stories. How to describe the incense that hits you immediately. Does it fill your nose? No, rather it rests in the nostrils. Pleasant but intruding. Like nuns.
I grew up with them. There were some really amazing sisters in high school. Sister Rose Marie was the first to encourage me to write. There seemed to be two camps of sisters – those who lived in the world and those who demanded the world stay as they saw fit. They were always the one’s I tangled with – or more precisely – tried not to.
As I sat trying to feel the right word to describe church incense, I was welcomed by several of the sisters. They know who the newcomers are. It was sweet, cozy. But for some reason, in the peace of the place, I was inspired to write a short story about a crabby nun who didn’t want anyone to upset the status quo. I was inspired to write the opposite of what I was feeling. That’s rather new. (it felt judgy though) But I couldn’t resist the humor of the story about a little nun who doesn’t want another woman to sing too loud, not knowing she’s a famous opera singer. The opera singer understands and sings softer, hiding her talent. Later the nun waddles off to bed, disconcerted by all lights from the other sister’s rooms so late at night. She herself covers her candle with a wicker waste-basket and ends up burning down the motherhouse. What a story to fly all at once into my head when faced with an earnest, welcoming, place. Even the priest couldn’t have been more suited to my thinking. Perhaps I am the little nun after all.
Where the symbol and reality finally came together in real way, was when the priest talked about our calling. Nuns are called to a service in the church. Married people have another journey and path. He was late in mentioning the single people – but it gave me the opportunity to wonder on my own. What then, is my mission, my dedication, if not to God or to family. Where is my service? (He did throw “and single people” in there at the end.) But what my brain found was something really renewing there on the first day of another journey around the sun. I am called to an artist’s life – through theatre, through writing. I am called not to have kids or devote myself to prayer, but rather to illuminate God’s humanity – to study and examine through story, what it is to be human.