To Music, from an Old Lover

My dear,

I sometimes thought I’d die without you—you who shook my soul and filled the wasteland of my womb with fertile singing. Yet I left you fully conscious of the risk of slow and agonizing death, or of an ever-bleeding wound where ancient ecstasies had hymned and sighed. I knew I could expect the wrenching of my heart whenever I perceive you suffering beneath the unrefined or disrespectful treatment you so often have to bear. I suffer with you, as a faithful lover should, regretting the predicament in which I placed myself and you. Perhaps, though, I presume too much—you have survived for centuries without me; and although I feel as if I’ve loved you since you first began to use your charms to soothe the savage breast of man, you owe me nothing. Rather, it is I who owe my very life to you. Although I chose to leave you, you could never part from me. You are the organ of my thought, the beat that pulses through my veins, the breath that feeds my being until death—and I remain, at heart,

                                                                                     Forever yours

I had originally written this poem, four years ago, in strict iambic tetrameter, which on paper made it look long and narrow, with very short lines, not at all like a letter. I decided to reconfigure it, preserving the iambs, but converting it into a prose poem so that it looks and feels more like a real letter. 

© Leticia Austria 2012

On Letters and Letter Writing

I've decided to take a brief interlude from my monastery narrative while I decide exactly how much more of that story I should tell -- or rather, can tell. Always a touchy thing, writing something autobiographical when nearly everyone involved is still living. Moreover, the reasons for my eventual departure from the monastery are very complex and deeply personal. So I'll think about all that. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these two sonnets I wrote a few years ago -- rather Victorian in tone, but maybe that serves the subject.

THE LETTER NEVER SENT

 

 

I'd write my true, unvarnished heart to you

If only I were sure you'd have it, dear,

In place of the mundane, detailed review

Of my small days and all that happens here.

I'd set my heart to music, write it out

On manuscript, each rhythm, note, and beat,

So clearly, that although it be without

A lyric, the intent would be complete.

The pen that I now hold so yearns to write

What stirs beneath the noncommital words

I send you, words I am constrained by right

As "friend" to say, all friendship's rule affords;

For if I dared to send my song, you'd hear

My heart, and all the love that's singing there.

THE MAILBOX

 

 

Some days it is so full of emptiness,

It seems to emulate the echo in

My hollow heart, the arid nothingness

Where once my dewy, eager hope had been.

On other days, it cruelly teases me

With letters, letters, like so many pins

To prick my bright balloons in callous glee.

No, none from you. The end of hope begins.

And so I tire of opening that door;

Its mockery I can no longer stand.

But just as I resolve to hope no more,

I glimpse my name in your belovèd hand!

My heart is like a brook that swells with rain;

I close the metal door and smile again.

********

 

 

My old friend, that amusing essayist "Alpha of the Plough," has this to say on the bygone art of letter-writing, all of which is just as relevant today as it was when he wrote it over a century ago:

 

 

     In the great sense letter-writing is no doubt a lost art. It was killed by the penny post and modern hurry.

     . . . .the telegraph, the telephone, and the typewriter have completed the destruction of the art of letter-witing. It is the difficulty or the scarcity of a thing that makes it treasured. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles we shouldn't stoop to pick them up.

     . . . .the secret of letter-writing is intimate triviality. . . .To write a good letter you must approach the job in the lightest and most casual way. You must be personal, not abstract. You must not say, "This is too small a thing to put down." You must say, "This is just the sort of small thing we talk about at home. If I tell them this they will see me, as it were, they'll hear my voice, they'll know what I'm about."

     . . . .A letter written in this vein annihilates distance; it continues the personal gossip, the intimate communion, that has been interrupted by separation; it preserves one's presence in absence. It cannot be too simple, too commonplace, too colloquial. Its familiarity is not its weakness, but its supreme virtue. If it attempts to be orderly and stately and elaborate, it may be a good essay, but it will certainly be a bad letter.

The World is Their Cloister

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend toward the end of my aspirancy in March of 2004.

Dear C_ ,

    You know what it is about this schedule? Nothing lasts more than an hour. Except for Sunday evening recreation, which is an hour and half. So you feel as if you barely settle in one place before you have to go someplace else. Kind of like high school. Here's a typical weekday for a postulant/novice:

  

5.20   Rising bell

5.50   Office of Readings, followed immediately by Morning Prayer (in chapel)

6.30   Private meditation (anywhere)

7.20   Mass, followed by private thanksgiving

          Profound silence ends

          Breakfast (pick up when done with thanksgiving)

8.45   Spiritual reading

9.20   Bell for Midmorning Prayer (chapel)

9.45   Work, as assigned
10.30  Study

11.30  Bell for Midday Prayer (chapel)

           Dinner  

12.55  Recreation in novitiate

1.30   Quiet time/nap

2.25   First bell for rosary

2.40   Rosary in common, followed immediately by Midafternoon Prayer (chapel)

3.15   Novices' allotted time for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (chapel)

4.00   Class (novitiate)
5.00   Bell for Evening Prayer (chapel)

          Supper, followed by dishes (as assigned)

          A few minutes' free time
6.40   Recreation with professed sisters in main community room

7.30   Bell for Compline, followed by Benediction (chapel)

          Private meditation (anywhere)

8.30   Showers/baths may begin

9.30   Profound silence begins

10.30 Lights out (unofficial)

     Yet there is a calmness to the day. If you had to follow such a tightly-packed schedule out in the world, you'd probably feel stressed. What makes it different here? First of all, the relative silence. Secondly, and more importantly, everything is done in prayerful recollection (hopefully), so that the whole day is spent in awareness of the presence of God.

     I took a stroll this morning before Mass to do my meditation. The sun had just risen, and the few clouds in the sky were golden. I went first to the cemetery, then to the woods. The paths had dried up a bit, so I went a little further than usual. The sun, still low in the sky, peeked through the straight, tall pines, making them seem like an army of angels marching in solemn triumph before the glory of God. The air was very still and cool and slightly damp, and there was on the ground a delicate silken network of webs, glistening in the golden rays. Walking in those woods, I feel very close to God.

     I went for another walk in the woods this afternoon during quiet hour. Every time I go out there, I look at the enclosure wall and think, "There is the boundary of their world. Beyond that wall, they hardly ever venture." It's an awesome, slightly chilling, thought. Can I really live witin these stone walls for the rest of my mortal life? Only by the grace of God! Since He seems to be asking me to try, I can only trust that He will also give me the strength. I look at the sisters and novices who are far younger than I, who are at an age when most young women begin to find ther lives, and marvel that they have made this choice. What courage, what genoerosity, what love they have for God! I've already tasted and experienced what I'd be giving up; they never had the chance to do even that! Who has the greater difficulty? Is it better not to know, is ignorance truly bliss? Or is it better to have known, then given it up? There are as many answers to that as there are people whom God calls to this life. As the fingerprints of our hands are unique, so are the blueprints of our souls; and God alone, the Master Builder, knows how many nails are needed, how many walls and windows, to build the temple within each of us. Make mine doubly strong, dear God, because I know the slightest wind of temptation could threaten to destroy it.

     This is a life of little things -- well, aside from the obvious big thing -- but I mean, it's the little things that touch my heart and put into sharp focus the beauty of this hidden life. When I enter the woods just after sunrise and see coming toward me the white-clad figure of a novice, habit and veil flowing in the chilly breeze, her face serene with the joy of Christ within her, my breath catches in my throat, and I think, "How beautiful that is!" Or when I go to the cemetery and watch an elderly sister, habit completely covered with her work apron, bending over the flowers she's tended so lovingly for God knows how many years, I think, "This is her world. This is her life. It's enough for her, because it's everything for her." Within these walls is a reality so deep and so true, all other "reality" shrinks beside its pure light. These women are living for God, with God, in love with God. That is their reality, and for them there is no other.

     My talk with Sr. __ was very wonderful, moving, and sad. She told me she developed fluid in her right lung in December; they drained it, but she then had pneumonia, and they had to drain it again. They told her she had probably six months more to live. It's very hard for me to talk or write about this -- all I can say is, I've never before seen ayone so cheerful and hopeful in the face of death. She's doing all she can to prepare herself to meet her Bridegroom, and she's awaiting her new beginning with such joy, I just can't be sad for her. This is what she's waited for -- what all the sisters wait for -- at last, to see God and be with him forevermore. I wish you could know her. She is a great soul, truly holy, yet so very comfortable and approachable and warm. She's taught me, in the short time I've known her, how to strive for holiness, and now she's teaching me how to die.

Upon my return to Houston, the hardest months of my life began. . . .                

On Visiting the Benedictines

My third and final monastic exploratory visit was in Canyon, Texas, at St. Benedict Monastery. This monastery is a foundation of St. Scholastica in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, the motherhouse of a teaching congregation. 

Although St. Benedict is a contemplative house, the sisters are not cloistered. There is no enclosure wall around the property, and the sisters go out as they please. I have to stress that this is not the norm with contemplative houses. I thought I would give this, shall we say, "in-between" kind of religious life a look to see if it were more suited to me than the strictly cloistered life. When I visited them, I was able to live among the sisters, pray the Office with them instead of listening to them from the other side of the sanctuary, and take meals with them. The events of my visit are recounted in this letter I wrote to a friend:

11 August 2003

Dear C_ ,

     Well! Here I am in Canyon, Texas—or, rather, just outside it—at St Benedict Monastery. I don't know exactly how far we are from town, but this feels truly isolated. Nothing but open land as far as the eye can see, but not all flat: just behind the monastery there's a bluff, so I guess I won't be walking out back in the dark of night!

     The monastery itself is very comfortable, large, 2-storeyed, newly built, with a tin roof. There is a separate wing for guests and another wing for the infirmary. They have, at the moment, a visiting abbot who is staying in the guest wing, so I am in the infirmary (there are no infirm) along with two visiting prioresses from the motherhouse in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. I have a large room to myself, and my own bathroom; everything is so nice and comfy, I sort of wonder whatever happened to the vow of poverty! Not luxurious, mind you, but much nicer than one would expect, I suppose.

     Aside from a few young saplings the sisters planted, there is nothing to break the wind or provide cooling shade. The panhandle sun beats down mercilessly on this parched land—they haven't had a decent rain since May. They've put out large containers of water for the thirsty mule deer, of which I've seen several since my arrival. There are other critters, of course, some of the not-so-Disney-cute variety. A dead centipede greeted me in the hall today, and I was told they've been pestered indoors by flying ants.

     (12 August)  Oy! I made the mistake of drinking leaded coffee at dinner last night, so I had the damndest time falling asleep. 5 a. m. came way too soon! I started the day by killing a spider—Critter #1. Then off to Vigils, followed in quick succession by Lauds and Mass, which the visiting abbot, Fr. Anselm, celebrated. I still cannot quite get the hang of the breviary—finding the right page at any given moment. Can't someone find an easier way to pray the Divine Office?! There are so many different colored markers, and you have to turn to one then the other and then to yet another, then back to the first one. . . . Oy!

     After Terce I went out to the small vegetable garden with Sr. Marcella, who picks up whatever's ready for eating. They grow beans, okra, cucumbers, tomatoes, and canteloupe. Most of these sisters (there are only 6) are farm girls. So there I was, City Mouse, my light skirt billowing in the breeze, an old straw hat of Sister's tied under my chin, watching Sister in her old shoes and Laura Ingalls bonnet push aside the leaves to find the beans, and pull up these mysterious wild greens that are supposedly good eating. I don't know, it all sems so idyllic—until you encounter another one o' them Critters. (I killed #2 in my bathroom.)

     There used to be two cows here, but they kept jumping the electric fence, so the sisters got rid of them. Now they have a horse, Rodeo, a retired roping horse (whatever that is). As Sr. Marcella and I left the cabbage patch she pointed to him standing by the fence and said, "See how his hind leg is curled up under him? He's sleeping." Oh. I knew horses slept standing up, but I didn't know they did it on three legs. City Mouse.

     I don't think I would fit in here. I feel too young compared to these sisters, and much too citified! The Dominicans, whom I loved at first sight, are looking even better to me, as is their charism of study. I think I would be happy there. And since they wear the full habit, which these sisters don't, and are therefore less inclined to spend unnecessary time in the Texas heat, I wouldn't have to deal so much with Critters, except indoors. I think I'd love studying Church history and Scripture and the early Church Fathers.

     The more I learn about monastic life, the more I realize what a unique and special vocation this is, not in the sense that so few are called to it, but in the sense that it is truly a great gift—and if one really comes to want it, then it becomes an even greater gift because when one says "yes" to it, God gives that person the strength necessary to follow it through. I'm not expressing it very well. He gives, you give back, then he gives even more. And the most anyone can give is oneself. All of oneself.

     (14 August 2003)  It amazes me how these women, some of whom, like Mother Rose in Santa Fe, have spent half their lives or more hidden away from the secular world, yet they can be so well-informed about the culture and society of today. But I was brought up a bit short the other day when I mentioned Dolores Hart to Sr. Marcella, saying that she was a well-known movie star who left Hollywood for the monastery. Sister said, "I don't know anything about that; must have been after I entered." And then I realized that these older sisters, especially the cloistered ones, didn't really experience the Elvis phenomenon, or the Beatles craze, and it makes me think of that old joke, "Where have you been, under a rock?" It's a bit hard to fathom how dfferent their experience is from ours.

     After spending a few days here, I'm now convinced that I'd prefer a larger community. There are only six here. I think that would drive me a bit nuts. Lufkin has 25 or 26—not that large, but large enough not to feel as if you were constantly bumping elbows and stepping on toes.

     I should close this letter. I only brought one envelope and one stamp!

                                                                      In Christ's love,

                                                                                           Leticia

In my next post, I will reveal my choice! However, I think I've already given it away. . . .