AS055 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on January 7, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include:nun eating habits, ordering pizza, cultivating mindfulness in daily life, making and breaking religious vows, the four-week psalter, and more!

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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What vows do a nun take? What would happen to a nun if she broke one of her vows?
• How can we live mindfulness, especially when we are always multitasking?
• What are samples of your typical meals? are you allowed coffee?
• Do nuns order pizza?
• Why the variety in styles of dress across religious congregations?
• What’s up with the four-week psalter and how do I know what week we’re in?

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Yesterday my buddy Carol and I went for a post-work bike ride. It was terribly windy so instead of doing the Lake Shore Trail, we rode through the neighborhood and along the North Branch of the Chicago River. Lots of kids were at the parks, and there were other bikers and runners and dog-walkers on the trail.

It was just great to get out and ride. The other day I had put on new tires for the new season. Old tires were more knobby for real mountain biking, but this summer I’ll be more about road biking. So I changed to something a bit more slick but still capable of jumping potholes now and again.

About midway on our ride, we hopped off the trail to head for a Starbucks. It’s then that we saw him … ELVIS!

I rode by Elvis, my heart pitter-pattering …. “it’s ELVIS,” I yelled to all who would hear me … and I waved as I biked by. How awesome is that. Minutes later, Carol and I landed at Starbucks, enjoying free cups of Pike Place Blend (coupons were in the Red Eye). After coffee, we went back to see if Elvis was still cranking out the tunes. Sure enough there he was.

We stopped and chatted with him for a bit. He said he’s known as the Assyrian Elvis in these parts. Favorite Elvis song, I asked? “Mama,” he replied. Elvis comes out every so often, parks on the side of the busy road, blasts Elvis music and plays and sings along. You rock, Elvis!

It’s snowing here in Chicago. I woke up this morning at 3:44 a.m. to the sound of a neighbor shoveling the sidewalk right beneath my window. Good morning! So I’ve been up ever since, praying, puttering around the house, doing some editing, and drinking strong coffee.

This is my favorite time of the day, though often I miss it because I am still sleeping. I love the pre-dawn day when the sun has not yet peeked over the horizon and the city feels asleep under the cover of night. My prayer as well as my thinking always seem so much sharper at this time. I feel like God is ever so close to me — I know God is always close to me, but this time of day seems to heighten it for me. How many psychologists and spiritualists talk about the “liminal edges”(liminal meaning being on the threshold)?

Dawn is like a threshold where the night is no longer here and the day not quite yet. They are both present and not present at the same time. Do you remember all those movies and fairy tales where the person (or thing) lives the day in one form (a werewolf, an ogre, a pumpkin or other creature — I watched the film Ladyhawke a million times when I was younger!) and at dusk transforms into another form? Then at dawn, the transformation is reversed? In our collective human psyche I think we know that these are special times of the day. Monks and nuns have honored these hours for hundreds of years by praying the Liturgy of the Hours. I honor this time with prayer and coffee (coffee being a libation of sorts, I suppose ).

Though I was a bit perturbed by waking up to a snow shovel scraping the sidewalk, upon further reflection, I’m glad for it because it reminds me to get up a little earlier next time so I can enjoy this sacred time instead of rushing into my day.

Thanks, Neighbor Guy, for waking me up — in more ways than one!