i guess i go “against the tide” when i try my best to live/practice what i have learned from the teachings of Christ. like when some of my friends are gossiping about someone (who isnt even my friend but i somehow know) and then i open my mouth and butt in a few of her/his good qualities, or tell my friends to stop making fun of someone and remind them that person has feelings too…or whenever i sacrifice any gain of social acceptance just because i choose to stand up for the truth and what i believe is right (based on Christ’s teachings on love and justice and human dignity). whenever i go “counter-cultural” (which is not very pleasant and is very taxing, believe me), i always feel rejected and misunderstood by most people. this always gives a big blow to me since i am very social and sensitive to the people i love and i always try to please them, so being counter cultural is very very difficult for me. but because i love God and want to apply in my life, in my way of living, in my way of relating to other people, the lessons His Son imparted on us, and because i believe in His teachings, i speak up and tell the world where i stand. which is basically on His side. of course i am always not 100% sure whether i get things right but i know deep in my heart what my motivations are and as long as i can honestly tell myself that the reason why i “counter a culture” is because that culture is counter to the Christian culture, then i am somehow happy with my decision to go against the tide.

and if i can share a few personal thoughts on wearing a habit….

i think nuns wearing a habit to be counter-cultural is sooo not the point…..hmmm i will try my best to explain how i view nuns and their habits….in my opinion, as a lay person….if ever i will become a nun, i would love to wear a habit….for the reason that i want people to see in the first instance, even from afar, to whom i belong to, to whom i work for, whose bride i am. for me, it’s like wearing a uniform (i know it is more than that…but let me explain…)…people know at once if someone is a firefighter or a doctor or a policewoman because of the uniforms they were. if there’s a crime that’s about to happen and the potential victim suddenly sees people wearing police uniforms she can run to those people and ask for help or protection. i would love to be in a situation wherein (if ever i become a nun, i still dont know) i am dressed in my habit and while doing grocery or walking on a street, a troubled woman can just approach me and ask me if i have time to have a talk to her, because she have seen from afar that i wear a habit and she knows i’m a nun because of my habit and she’s somehow seeking for spiritual guidance. or like when i was in the senior year of my college studies, i participated in this human rights seminar. and all of the people there were from progressive non govt organizations. and then, i saw a couple of women dressed as nuns, from the same congregation that runs the high school where i graduated from, my heart just leapt with joy. i felt so much more in love with God than i was before i saw this two habit-wearing women. i felt God truly is a good, merciful God who would like to uphold the dignity of His abused children. in my mind it was like, “see, He even sent His representatives! He is with us in this cause!” of course nuns are all God’s representatives regardless of whether they wear a habit or not, and i strongly agree that the holiness and kindness of a nun is not seen in her habit but in how she relates to people and how she strives to keep her vows faithfully, and how she passionately loves and obeys God. but because i am a visual person, because i am born and raised in a traditional Catholic family with an uncle for a priest and several aunts in my extended family who are nuns, and because i have spent 10 years in Catholic all-girls’ school run by nuns, seeing women in a habit affects me in this way. i see them as God’s women. and it strengthens me, it comforts me if we are together in a seminar promoting values which i believe are rooted in the Gospel. and so i was just thinking, while i read the blog posted above, that if ever i become a nun, i would love to wear a habit, so that anywhere i go, even without opening my mouth to speak, people who earnestly seek God may be comforted just by my presence, they can just approach me, or decide to befriend me because they know i can help them seek their way back to God.

I’ll give an example. I have a teenage daughter. She has everything she needs and many things she wants. I told my her I’d drive her to the mall at 7. 15 minutes before I’m to take her, a neighbor calls with an emergency and asks for help. What would be the more “Christian” thing, a.k.a. loving thing to do? Tell my neighbor I can’t help because I have to drop my daughter off at the mall or ask my daughter to wait an hour and I’ll take her later? This example is not profound but it illustrates a point. As a Christian, who is to love all, and serve all – within limits of course (not to be a doormat), I should help my neighbor in this case. The same type of scenario could apply to a sister in her primary relationship, God. Can she delay her prayer time if an emergency, or a significant need of another arises?

Although we all have our priorities, and special people we serve on a regular basis, we have to open our hearts to others, maybe even strangers, in times of need. This doesn’t only apply to those serving in paid helping professions. Sometimes we gotta help for free! God calls us to move out of ourselves.

dee

I think it is a shame that “countercultural” – in common usage – seems to have taken on a negative meaning. I think of it in much more positive terms. Countercultural responses are part and parcel of Catholic life: Jesus was human AND divine; Mary was mother and virgin; Judas was betrayer and lover. One nature countered the other in a constant integration and separation and reintegration of spiritual and human natures, and that is – for me – both the beauty and the challenge of Catholic spirituality. I must strive always to relinquish my human position when I en – counter the presence of God, in whatever form it comes to me, and I must always know that my human capacity to visually identify God in my en-counters is limited.

Jean

I certainly do understand your point of view. But is having “religious sisters” similar or the same as having biological sisters or brothers? From what I have observed, the bond among family members, in general, appears tighter. The relationship between sisters in the same congregation seems more similar to friendships and acquaintances in school. Some of these relationships are deep and enduring indeed, some superficial, others antagonistic and everything else in between.

Any comment from the sisters on the thread?

dee

What do we mean by ‘culture’? Is it a manifestation of human achievement (eg a city lacking in culture), or intellectual development (eg a person of culture), or the customs of a particular time or people (eg studying Chinese culture)? And what are we implying if we label ourselves as counter-cultural? Maybe we’re using the term ‘culture’ here to mean a set of values which we perceive to predominate in the civilization, or the society, or the country (or the culture!) in which we live.

As one who tries to live by the testimonies of my Quaker faith I could easily see myself as counter-cultural because – living in Britain where our ‘culture’ increasingly includes materialism, profligacy, and recreational sex – I seek to honour the values of simplicity, moderation, peacefulness and sexual integrity. But if I’m not careful, there could be more than a hint of self-righteousness in setting myself apart from current trends by labelling myself as counter-cultural.

Simone Weil defined culture as ‘an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who when their turn comes will manufacture professors’. For me there’s an implication of ‘holier than thou’ if I call myself counter-cultural to distance myself from my neighbours.

So I’m grateful to be part of my ‘culture’ – whatever this means! – and I’m inspired by these words of William Penn, one of the founding fathers of the Quaker movement in the 17th century: ‘True godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it’.

[I hasten to add that I'm not disparaging those who are gladly describing themselves as counter-cultural in this thread and, on the contrary, I richly admire the values which they ascribe to the term. I'm just adding a few musings of my own because I'd love to read some responses!]

In many ways, I find myself to be countercultural – although I am not countercultural just to be countercultural. My lifestyle is a combination of my values, beliefs and my nature. Firstly, I am not a materialistic person. I don’t need or want a lot of stuff. I’m also not very competitve. I don’t have to feel like I’m better than others. I don’t have the need for power unless having some power (maybe in the form of connections, etc.) will get me what I need, solve my problem, etc. I am who I am – point blank. I’ve never liked a lot of attention and usually prefer to keep a low profile. I am humble by nature (don’t mean to make it sound like I have no faults – I’ve got plenty of them – they are just not in the areas mentioned above!) Although I do admittedly like my creature comforts, as well as a little luxury now and then, I live a simple life. I buy just about everything on sale. I rarely go to the theatre or expensive restaurants. I don’t accumulate much (although sometimes I do purchase more junk than I need which causes unnecesary clutter) and camp mainly when I go on vacation. My retreats with the sisters are my luxury! Being as involved in Church as I am (countercultural activity largely) sometimes gets a strange smirk from secular friends and relatives. But it really doesn’t bother me.

When reading Jean’s comments, something came to mind. A religious that does NOT wear some sort of definable habit, i.e., veil, is acting COUNTER TO THE CULTURE, or counterculturally, vis a vis the normative culture of traditional religious life. Perhaps this “countercultural” approach of NOT wearing a habit is seen almost as a form of “political opposition” – see Sr. Julie’s definition. Perhaps that is why it causes such ire. Just something to think about.

dee

and, if we can imagine that, what might a countercultural response to that be now? I don’t know the answer, except that I assume it precludes all this toxicity from all sides.

jean

is it possible that, within the Church community, the transition by some orders to “non-traditional” habits has been an essential means of helping our church leaders – men and women – develop a “poverty of spirit” in their encounters with and in their pastoral leadership and care for women? i do NOT mean here religious women; i mean the lay women served by the Church’s men and women.

is there – was there – some need for some, not all but some, religious women to be countercultural in their interaction with the Church’s traditions for women as a means of countering now lost-to-history realities and cultural constructions of who (lay) women are out in the world where – by Jesus’ teaching – they remain and will always remain children of God?

is there – was there – some need for Church men and women to gain experience – firsthand, as equals, in the daily but intimate humdrum of their individual and corporate lives as clerics and religious – with women who reflect what had occurred and continues to occur in the world: an historically new and unique and complex concept of who Woman is, who Woman can be, how Woman suffers, how Woman triumphs, etc.

It does not matter, for this particular question I am asking, what any of us thinks about that historically new creature, the modern woman, be she in Ghana or Cleveland or Iceland or China or Nicaragua: she HAS happened and the world IS different. It will NEVER be the same for the same reason NOTHING is ever the same.

And because the Church is the mystical body of Christ, this historically new and unique woman – as an integral member of God’s Body – needs to be KNOWN to the Church. And maybe, just maybe, these sisters who transitioned from centuries’ old traditions are the Holy Spirit’s living countercultural and welcoming response within God’s Church. Maybe when some – not all but some – Sisters bring this historically unique woman into the Church by reflecting her, they are the opportunity for the Church to practice a “poverty of spirit” for its encounter with this new member of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Again, i don’t want to (and just won’t) get engaged in any of the specific fights going on out there in the world about religious women and the Church ————I am with Nathalie in being appalled by the toxicity on all sides and the anxiety is enough to make me a bit nauseous at times about why I am even thinking of this life: if I want to deal with “us vs. them and them and them, too” thing, I can do it out here AND I can curse out loud (and rather spectacularly) about it out here.

But I am interested in the possibility that “poverty of spirit” ( which is the “countercultural” life to which I do believe God calls all of us, religious or not) might always requires a *communicated* witness —– wherever we may find ourselves called to be, whatever we are called to do ——— to both the paths to God here on Earth and the barriers to God here on Earth, the latter being what we counter.

And there are as many barriers to God here on Earth as there are people so musn’t we have many, many ways of helping each other past those barriers? and doesn’t the recognition of those barriers require that we release our pride that we frail humans will ever definitely define that “set” of responses by which the Holy Spirit asks each of us to help others counter the barriers to God?

i think of Jesus partying with Matthew and the other tax collectors…
talk about countercultural.

it has been one of the revelations of my discernment that there *is* a reason I “don’t want a man”. and it is a gorgeous thing; not a problem at all; nothing to go to therapy about at all; nothing psychological at all. and you are right, Nat, that there is something “countercultural” in that, still, even in this day and age….

One of my questions for myself in this whole discernment process has been how I would respond to a request for an alumni “classnote” for my tiny private high school, college and grad programs and what about reunions if I enter religious life? and i realize that, for the first time, what I could say could capture the essence of my life rather than simply be a list of demographic “facts”. that it would say to my old worlds, “hey, you know when we were all trying to understand ourselves in the world, for me at least, we totally blew past the possibility that relationship with God could be the rhyme and reason, the central focus of a really wonderful, meaningful, successful, happy, intimate life and d0esn’t this – me as a nun, the nun right here in front of you, noy your image of a nun but the one standing right here in front of you – make total sense in retroprect?” i love to imagine that and I think it would makes total sense once I was standing right there in front of almost anyone I have known well at any time in my life. kind of in the way that, even though I obviously only know you here, Nathalie, your pull toward contemplative life makes more and more “sense”, even though you are so evidently full of piss and vinegar in the most delightful and intelligent and “relating” way. even God needs playdates, right?

As far as being counter-cultural goes, I guess I would be considered to be somewhat so, although it was never a conscious choice. I haven’t watched television in almost two years and don’t miss it one bit. I haven’t listened to the radio since the early to mid-nineties and don’t miss it. I love being in silence, doing my own thing, hanging out with my cat. I prefer being alone to the company of people. That’s a hard one for a lot of people to wrap their brains around, seeing as I’m so friendly and outgoing, but there you have it.

I am not interested in a relationship, and I think that this is viewed by most as the big “counter-cultural” thing about me. Personally, I don’t see what the big hoopla is all about, but apparently there are a lot of people out there who think that a middle-age woman who not only is still single, but has never been married and is not even interested in a relationship, is just not 100% right in the head. One lady I work with just really doesn’t get it and she asked me recently, “But why don’t you want a man, Nat? I just don’t understand.”

And I think that maybe one of the most counter-cultural things a woman can do is to be herself without a man to help butress her sense of identity. We evidently still live in an age where an awful lot of women can’t even feel 100% whole without a man – almost like women who are single and choose to stay that way, for whatever reasons, are somehow deviant.

Or a bit threatening.

i also think poverty of spirit means we challenge ourselves – with mercy – but with the finest of microscopes (very mixed metaphor or half-baked one but you know what i mean and my dog is threatening to pee on the floor).

jean

First pass: in context of Catholic Christian religious life, i would say that the call to be “countercultural” is a call to “a poverty of spirit”.

That, too, is itself deeply complex but, somehow, I think we know it when we encounter it in individuals because (I believe) “poverty of spirit” exists in the “I-Thou” relationship, in the relationship between God in thee and God in me. (I am ever so obviously ripping off Martin Buber, whose work I have never read in the original; I hope my theft is at least superficially justified).

As one of the other posters mentioned, I think to understand what it means for each order requires a serious look at what “culture(s)” the specific charism given to each founder to nurture and/or counter.

And I think that requires a willingness to set aside our own agendas, to learn about and “experience” the charism while maintaining a constant focus on maintaining our OWN “poverty of spirit” as we seek to understand the “poverty of spirit” expressed/lived/sought through the order’s charism, that gift of the Holy Spirit.

And I believe “poverty of spirit” is a state, a process, an evolution, a flexibility, a response to and dialogue with the other children of God we encounter…and, thus, can rarely be reduced to anything as black-and-white as clothing (pun intended). Clothing is often part of it – actually, I believe clothing IS part of it, all the world around in our modern society – but I believe the specific “clothing [of the spirit]” that communicates a “poverty of spirit” will be a conclusion of and not an opening for that dialogue.

Jean

Ooooh I love a good back and forth! Thank you for following up on this because I think it is one of the many complexities that is treated reductively by many of the “absolutist” proponents of “the habit”.

And I agree: one does not become a nun to be “countercultural”. That would seem an exploitation of religious life.

I am going to think more on your questions and the others’ responses.
Sr Julie, you always provide such richness. I love this stuff. Dissertation topic #1905!

Nuns and sisters, as you have said, exist to serve God, and in many ways that in itself is counter-cultural. But you don’t, necessarily, live to be an example to others of that counter-cultural effort, so you don’t necessarily need to stand out in a crowd.

However, if part of your charism or ministry does have an intent to make a public counter-cultural statement, then I do see a public benefit to wearing a habit, or some other obvious dress that is immediately recognizable, that screams to the world, “I am a NUN!”. For some orders, that is a big part of who they are, to stand out in the world as something different, something apart.

I don’t think, though, that this particular ideal must be a standard of religious life. I think each community needs to discern that particular charism for themselves. Like Regine, I just do not understand why this has to be such a big issue. There are benefits to wearing the habit, yes, but there are also drawbacks. Let each community discern this issue and make their decision around it.

As for myself, I consider myself counter-cultural in many ways, and not in other ways. Publicly, though, not many would look at me as particularly counter-cultural except for my desire to dress as my middle-aged frumpy self, almost completely eschewing the requirements of fashion. Although, I guess that is a significant counter-cultural statement, saying that I will be myself regardless of what others think, and truly just not caring what others think.

As far as the habit goes, of course I don’t have one because I’m not a nun, but if I were I think I would choose to wear it for a couple of reasons. If I end up as a consecrated hermit I will have the option of using a habit. I think I would use a simple one, because of what I mentioned before, how my example seems to occasionally inspire someone else to be more open to being called. Along with that comes the sometimes helpful pressure other people’s expectations put on me to live up to my public commitments (though, if I admit that pressure too much, it can cause me to hide my true flaws and failings, pretend to be more perfect than I am — NOT so healthy).

Another reason is that women’s clothing choices are never neutral in our society, it’s all tied up with acquisitiveness, position, and sexual attractiveness. The habit is simple and uniform, to me it represents a renunciation of all the vanity and self-conscious femininity that “fashion” carries.

On the other hand, I don’t know why it has to be so all-or-nothing with women religious habits. The male monks and friars I know sometimes wear the habit, and sometimes wear regular street dress. There is not all this emotional drama about it.