The Digital Nun

Well, I am back now from Detroit. It was a busy week there, with two vocation talks, and three presentations, along with the radio interview on Busted Halo.

Now that I am home though, I have a little time to concentrate on doing some writing for the Digital Nun, and I thought I might share an experience I once had with prayer.

One of the requirements of making an application to religious life is often an autobiographical statement. During my application, I took the writing of my autobiography very seriously and ended up writing this 60 page tome. (I found out later that the community was expecting maybe 5 pages.)

Once I had it done, I took my completed autobiography to a friend and asked her to read it over for me. She came back to me and said that she thought it was all very good except for one thing. She said that there was this nice flow to it, until I got to my spiritual journey. At that point, writing became choppy and disjointed, and she wondered why.

Although I never said so, I knew that it was because I lacked confidence in talking about my spirituality. I was always better at speaking about faith, prayer, and the Gospel, in general terms, but when it came to my own journey, I would kind of subtly shy away from the conversation. Nevertheless, I returned to my extensive manuscript, attempting to make my spiritual journey flow.

Because I had no computer of my own, I was using a co-worker’s and could only work on it after everyone had gone home. I had been in the habit of staying at the office sometimes until 11:00 at night, pouring out my life story onto the keyboard. On the night that I was trying to update the spiritual section of my autobiography, however, nothing much was pouring out. What I was mostly doing was sitting and staring at the screen. It got later and later and I still had made no substantial improvement on my work, and I was frustrated and tired.

One thing that I really remember about that night was how everything around me highlighted my being alone there. A desk lamp over the computer table gave the only light in the whole office, which sat on the edge of the woods. Outside the open window next to me, all was dark and the sound of the crickets only made the silence seem louder.

I was, by this time, spent and instead of continuing to grasp for any words that might sound good to the Sisters, I just sat there and stared at the screen. That’s when something happened that I doubt I will ever forget. There in the eerie silence I heard a voice. It was not an audible voice, but rather something inside me that at the same time beyond me. The voice said just these few simple words: “You know, I really am real.”

That was all there was. At that point, everything around me kind of faded into the background and I was alone there with those words. I really am real. They were repeated over and over again inside me and each time they seemed to go a little deeper. I was stupefied really because at that point I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt not only that God was real, but that all of God’s promises were real. I also knew, all at once, how unsure I had been up to that point that God was real.

I can’t overstate what happened next. I was euphoric. If God is real, I thought, then that changes everything! I am here as part of this magnificent creation and my only purpose grow in union with God. I knew then what Julian of Norwich meant when she said, “… all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well”.  I stopped caring about when I would finish the autobiography and just kind of floated out of the office to my car, and home to my bed.

The next day, at morning mass, I was absorbed by this feeling that we are all a part of this Mystical Body and that all the people there were my sisters and brothers. I felt a genuine love for each one of them and I wanted to say it out loud, even though I didn’t.

This feeling carried me through several days, but just like the Apostles, I have to leave Mount Tabor. Still, I have never forgotten that experience and to this day, almost 15 years later, I am still drawing spiritual nourishment from it. (Jesus said that if you drink the water that He gives, you will never thirst again.)

I wanted to share this experience with the people who read this blog, because everything God gives us is meant to be shared. I hope some of you will want to share here as well.

Peace to all of you,

Sr. Judy

P.S. I eventually finished my autobiography and managed to cut it back to a mere 15 pages.