This Sunday we will gather online for a book discussion on Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. We’re going to use the theme of Sister John’s choice to become a nun as the starting point of our conversation. There is a starter question on the Discussion Forum under the topic deciding to become a nun. Here’s the full pathway:

Board index » Current Book Discussions » Lying Awake by Mark Salzman » Discussions by Theme » deciding to become a nun

I encourage you to read through the book (and the specific section mentioned) with this theme in mind. Feel free to go on the forum and respond, raise related questions, etc. at any time. If you find other relevant passages that relate to Sister John’s becoming a nun then please add those so we can refer back to those pages too. Then on Sunday come to the forum topic deciding to become a nun any time from 7-9 CST (timezone converter) for a live discussion with me and the A Nun’s Life community. If you haven’t read the entire book or none of it, please feel free to join us anyway. There will be lots of food for thought on the book itself but also for our own lives!

We will then continue this discussion on Wednesday from 12 -2 p.m. CST (timezone converter) for those who couldn’t make it on Sunday or who want to go deeper into the discussion from Sunday.

In the meantime, it’s the eat-poop-play-sleep routine for me today with my baby nephew Simon. Yea!

Question from Michelle …

I am a 23 year old college grad, a writer and actress, but I have always felt very called to God in some way. I feel as if I should write about spirituality… but I’m unsure what to write! Anyway… this “calling” (I hesitate to call it that because I’m really not sure)– has gotten stronger lately, but the problem is that I dont have anyone to talk to about it. I live in New York City with a lot of actor/artist friends, and generally when you talk to them about religion, they get uncomfortable. I have lost some friends this way. I also work at a church, and every time I attempt to talk to a priest about it, they seem as if they dont really have time for me.

Dear Michelle, Thanks for writing — sorry for the delay in responding. Very cool combination of talents you have! Spirituality is a great topic to write about — especially because it is in everything we are and do! It’s about seeking something deeper, something “more than” … it’s about being aware and present to the moment, to where you are and to how God is calling you. I encourage you to tend to your feeling of wanting to write about spirituality.

One of the best authors on this subject is my friend Vinita Hampton Wright. Vinita is one of the reasons I got back into writing. Back in 2004 I did a retreat with her called “The Soul Tells a Story”. It rocked my world!

Seriously the retreat changed how I thought about myself as a writer and Vinita gave me wonderful skills and encouragement to persevere, to delight in, to reverence the art of writing. Vinita still does these retreats and she has a book on the same topic — The Soul Tells A Story: Engaging Creativity With Spirituality In The Writing Life. (Hmmmm … maybe we can get Vinita to visit us on A Nun’s Life for a live discussion!??)

I encourage you to pursue this calling, Michelle, and to think on those elements of the spiritual life that attract you, that intrigue you, and maybe that even scare you! Those are good places to start. Also, read good literature and spiritually-minded authors like Joyce Carol Oates and Virginia Woolf (especially Mrs. Dalloway). Mark Salzman is another excellent writer who deals with spiritual themes. In terms of non-fiction type stuff, start with some of the classics by the saints and holy people of various religious traditions. And you can always check in with me. I’ve always wanted to be part of a spiritual writers club!

Now in terms of having folks to talk with, let me put it out to the A Nun’s Life community here — Any suggestions for Michelle to connect with writing groups online or in NYC that deal with writing spirituality? Any nuns in the area who would enjoy hooking up for spiritual conversation with Michelle?

One of my favorite nun books is not written by a nun at all but by Mark Salzman who also authored Iron and Silk and The Soloist. His book about a Catholic nun is called Lying Awake.

The Saint Petersburg Times has a clever feature on the book called Read and Feed: ‘Lying Awake’ by Mark Salzman paired with Nun’s Sighs. Article writer Tom Valeo gives a mini review of Lying Awake and suggests the perfect cookie to eat while reading the book: Nun’s Sigh cookies!

I definitely want to re-read this book. And I’m thinking a number of you might enjoy the book too. So what about having an online book discussion on Lying Awake? I think I could probably find a cloistered nun or two who would be willing to join us and share from their experience too. If interested, leave a comment below and be sure to enter your correct email so I can contact you. Once I see if folks are interested, I’ll pull together more details.

Monday is Nunday! I received an email from Christine telling me about a website by Sister Mary Jane Masterson, CSJ. I thought it would be a great contribution to Nunday as Sister Mary Jane has lots of photos from throughout her life.

Sister Mary Jane is a sister of the Congregation of Saint Joseph in Cleveland, Ohio. Christine notes,”Sister Mary Jane has published a book about her life, reflecting on her growing up years, twenty years of convent life before Vatican II and her road of renewal that she continues to travel today.” You can check out the book on Sister Mary Jane’s website or at Amazon at One Nun’s Story: Then and Now.

Here’s a couple of pictures from Sister’s website:

Keep sending in your photos of real Catholic sisters and Nuns.

The final part of a story by Brian Doyle in Best Catholic Writing 2007 on The Sisters of Mount Angel (return to the beginning of the story)

If we are to properly honor and celebrate the legacy of such graceful and strong people as the sisters at Mt. Angel, who have bent their whole lives to the promise that love will defeat darkness, then we must march into our days with rage and song, with hammers in our hands and prayers in our mouths, and build us a new Church and a new world and a new, roaring poem, with all the grace and strength and sweet, wild magic we can muster. It can be done. It’s being done as I write these words and as you read them. These brave women bet their lives on that premise. My mama bet her life on that premise. Are we to tell them they were wrong, and the task is too big? I don’t have the courage to tell my mother such a thing, for she is a tart, tough, tiny Irish Catholic woman from New York City, and even my brothers, strapping men far taller and broader than I, quail at the thought of telling our mum what cannot be done; and it would take a far braver man than I to stand up to tiny Sister Alicia and tell her that the work she has chosen to do is a bust. She would laugh in my face, and she would be right.

So let us go, then, you and I, and forge a new thing. We do not know its shape, but we know the astounding idea at its heart, the idea that has driven the Catholic clan through two thousand years, the idea that remains, I believe, the key to the moral evolution of the human race, the idea that fell again and again from the lips of the gaunt, dusty man with starlight in his veins: love, love, love, love, love.

The End.