Return to Regina Laudis, Part Two, and the End of My Vocation Story

     17 April 2007    Twins were born yesterday evening! Zephyr, one of the ewes, was the first to give birth this year at the abbey, and she bore twins. I went as usual with Mother Jadwiga to feed the sheep, and Mother told me that Zephyr was in the final stage of labor. When we got there, she hadn't yet lambed, so I dished out the feed, went to supper, and when I returned to the barn an hour later, there was a little dark brown lamb lying on the hay being tenderly cleaned by its mother. The dear little thing was struggling to stand up, but its long spindly legs would not cooperate. Mother told me it was a girl. Such a cute little helpless thing! Her ears stuck straight out from either side of her head like an airplane's wings; her little tail kept fluttering like a butterfly, and her tiny piping of a bleat was enough to break your heart.
     Mother said, "There's another lamb in the water spout," meaning a second one was still to be born, but poor Zephyr was having a hard time. So Mother felt inside and found something amiss -- I think the poor lamb's hind leg was splayed out so that it couldn't go through, and it was a breech. Mother went to get help, leaving me alone with poor Zephyr, who kept baa-ing and looking at me with imploring eyes. I kept murmuring to her, "I know, sweetheart; I'm sorry I can't help you, but I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' lambies!"
     After what seemed an eternity, Mother finally returned with Mother Rachael, who obviously didn't know nuthin' neither. Mother Jadwiga instructed her how to hold Zephyr, told me to keep the little brown lamb in her mother's sight so she wouldn't panic about her baby, and proceeded to pry the unborn lamb out. So I picked up the little one and just couldn't resist cradling her in my arms before laying her before her mother. When I did give the lamb to Zephyr, she began to lick her again, then, as I was kneeling very close, Zephyr looked up at me with a woebegone face and licked my hand in gratitude.
     After a few moments, Mother Jadwiga gasped in weary but triumphant relief, "We have a baby!" and brought the newborn, still covered in its membrane, to Zephyr's muzzle. It lay motionless on the hay while Zephyr' warm tongue cleaned off the membrane; Mother Jadwiga picked up the newborn, held him upside down, and gave him a few good shakes to clear mucus from his breathing passages, after which he began to stir.
     He has grayish-beige wool with black markings and a cute little snubbed face. He looks nothing like his sister!
     There are five more ewes due withing the next week or so, so maybe I'll see more newborns before I leave. What a beautiful experience!

     18 April 2007    Strange --  I was so certain that this was the place for me, this abbey. But I'm beginning to have my doubts. Maybe it's because I'm not sure what I'm looking for in religious life. I know I need people, the support and security of some kind of community, but I also crave solitude, silence, time to be still before the Lord. There is so much activity here, sisters running or driving to and fro various parts of the property, barely making it to Office, changing in and out of their work habits.
     I suppose this kind of life, constantly caring for the land and the animals, really takes you out of yourself, and maybe I need that, or something like it, but to a lesser degree. I hate running around, living in a state of perpetual motion. Then again, there are many other things I could work at here -- pottery, cheese making, book binding -- that don't require so much running around.
     And where do my musical gifts fit into all this -- or should they? Are they at all compatible with the life I so desperately want?
     Is there a place for me?

     Epilogue: I have since, four years after that second visit to the abbey, discovered the answer to that question: there is a place for me, if God wills it; but I have to be completely willing to take all the musical gifts that he gave me, place them back in his hands, and say with my whole heart: "Fiat voluntas tua. (Thy will be done.)" The truth is -- and I can finally admit it to myself -- I just wasn't ready, deep down, to give them up completely when I entered the Monastery of the Infant Jesus. I thought I was, I said I was, but the truth is, I wasn't -- or, more accurately, my ego wasn't. Intellectually, I knew they could eventually be given back to me, purer, untainted by my pride; but emotionally, it was a different ballgame. 
     Today, I use my musical gifts only to play the organ for Mass on Sundays. I've given up the piano for now, given up vocalizing every day, and devote myself to helping my parents. Do I miss those things at all? Sometimes. But I have to say that life feels much freer, not being under the heavy yoke of the quest for musical perfection, not being a slave to my own impossible standards and becoming a shrew in the process. As I said before, the true gift of music is in the loving of music, not in the perfecting, and not even necessarily in the doing. The quest for Christian perfection is, as Jesus tells us, a much lighter yoke -- and far more rewarding.
     I have not given up hoping that God will eventually lead me again to the cloister, but if he doesn't, I'll be content knowing I tried my best to follow his will and say "yes" to his grace.