I don’t mention this to bash Oprah. I only mention it because if Oprah doesn’t have a basic conceptual grasp of the life of Christian religious, i.e., the life of Christian nuns and monks, sisters and brothers, one can barely expect more “ordinary” lay persons to have half a clue.  Why?

Oprah has access to practically anything she wants 24/7. This includes people, books, experts, the works. For someone so publicly aligned with the spiritual life writ large, for someone who has made millions sharing (some would say “peddling”, but I wouldn’t) “spirituality” it seems out of character for her to engage in the kind of televised gawking that went on today.

Of course, many will see nothing unusual here: Oprah isn’t orthodox. That is, she has never to my knowledge cast as “Christian” her personal spiritual awakening or the platform she’s given to the authors of numerous spiritual books she’s had on her show. It’s “spirit” or “spiritual”, but not denominational. I think she’d admit that her orientation is Christian in many respects. But it was, in retrospect, foolish of me to think that Oprah as spiritual big sister to the world would have known about the lives of American women religious. The order happened to be Roman Catholic. So? Well I suspect many Catholics themselves are clueless about what it means to be a nun or are ignorant of the basic spiritual aspects of the nuns’ religious life.

But here’s where Oprah doesn’t get a pass. The “normal” person in the pew may be blissfully ignorant of the traditions of the religious life. But why is this aspect of American life so foreign to Oprah? I suppose the feeling I have now is reminiscent of an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.

Baltimore Detectives Pembleton and Bayliss (I think) pick up a young black wannabe gangster they’ve tried to get information from. I believe they handcuff the kid, throw him (sort of gently) in the back of the car, and start driving. The kid freaks out believing that they’re going to rough him up or worse. As his anxiety increases Pembleton and Bayliss appear serene and self-assured.

Finally, they pull off near a body of water. The kid now is terrified. They uncuff him and just stand there with him. The kid has no idea where he is. It’s the Atlantic Ocean. Just 10 or so minutes from his home and he’d never been there. The streets — literally and figuratively — were all this kid knew. Oprah had never sought out that which surrounded her least during her mega-star years: all the books about the religious life, all the people who did know about the religious life, all these examples of nuns and monks in the US.

As I said, my intent is not to bash Oprah. Rather, I take it as an opportunity to look into my self: What am I likewise blissfully ignorant about but have no excuse to be? What group or religion am I woefully ignorant about?

[Photo: Eros Hoagland for The New York Times]

From the NY Times, a wonderful photo-documentary on the rebuilding of a Christian monastery in Iraq, St. Elijah’s.

I hope that when the dust settles and the bullets stop (or mostly stop), Iraq will be a destination spot for people interested in studying antiquity. There’s so much history there, religious and otherwise.

A little late! I did celebrate. But I wanted to share two things.

1) The traveling rabbi who comes to your office to blow the shofar!

2) This poster. I think it’s over the top cool.

May our names continue to be inscribed in the  roll book of learning.

The proof below.

bathroom deodorizer

Guadalupe calendar

Guadalupe cloth pinned on jacket

Guadalupe drawer

One Guadalupe Moleskine

Two Guadalupe Moleskine

Lots of Guadalupe Moleskines

Guadalupe shawl

front door

Guadalupe material

on the altar with a 57yr old hat from Mexico

She wore this hat in 1952 when she went to Tepeyac. She fainted at the shrine.

Sticker on one dining room window

Guadalupe bumper sticker

on the Guadalupe mobile

Sticker on the Beguine mobile

Many, many decades ago, a young man attended Pomona College where he met Fr. Winance. Fr. Winance was teaching a class at the Claremont Graduate School which is just up the street from Pomona College. (The Graduate School is now called Claremont Graduate University). This student’s name was Robert Hale.

Robert Hale was an Episcopalian at the time, I believe. He was drawn to the religious life, particularly Benedictine spirituality. But at that time, the Episcopal/Anglican communion did not have Benedictine monks. So Robert Hale became a Roman Catholic. Eventually he became abbot of a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur, New Camaldoli Hermitage. He’s written some books and give talks on Benedictine spirituality.

Fast forward another few decades from Robert Hale’s transition. At one point one of my spiritual director’s own spiritual director was Robert Hale. (At the time I was contemplating — pun intended! — entering a religious order. Being the “bookish”, thoughtful type, she thought the Benedictine model might fit me best.)  By this point the Episcopal church did have Benedictine orders. I eventually visited the Benedictine monastery, Incarnation Monastery, in Berkeley, which was a joint Anglican-Catholic house.

I may have met Br. Robert there. I certainly met him when I went on retreat at the monastery in Big Sur.

Fast forward another decade. I’ve graduated from SF State. I’m at the Claremont Graduate School working on my PhD. (Where tuition is now $35K a year; Stanford is $24K a year.) I’m minding my own business. I’m standing inside the Philosophy Department. Who do I see getting out of a car parked across the street? Br. Robert!

I could not believe me eyes! I run outside calling his name. He kind of remembers me. We’d only met once or twice and at that, many, many years prior. I tell him of our two degrees of separation (my spiritual director and his directee).

It was then that I discovered that he’d gone to Pomona College! He was back for alumni day! And it was then that I also heard about how taking a class and talking with Fr. Winance, with whom I was currently taking a class, was pivotal in his becoming a Benedictine monk.

“Six degrees” of separation. Kind of freaky, but in a nice way.

It was so quiet! I’ve done silent mediation before. I think if I hadn’t I’d have burst a blood vessel or something. Wednesday was a busy day for me. Well, it’s been a busy semester thus far. I wanted to conduct a little experiment. Could I be still? Could I lay it all down and simply be?

For thirty minutes – no cell phone, no email, no web surfing, no paper grading, no course prep, nada. Nothing except, yes, the myriad of thoughts that danced by. But even there I was able to focus on a simple phrase to help block out the internal noise. I also studied the really cool icon of Francis they had underneath the altar. It was very modern and not in the model of a Russian icon, for instance.

The reading from the Rule of St. Francis that morning was on chastity. The sisters are celibate. But chastity isn’t only about not having sex. (I’ll save that for another post.) So I meditated on how I could be more chaste.

Most of us probably zone out in front of the TV or we curl up with a magazine or book. Those activities do take us away from ourselves in a sense. Sometimes the “escapism” is a good thing, sometimes its not. But to be quiet and to be with oneself is a different kind of “time out”.

I wonder if Buddhist parents give their kids a “meditative” time out? That would be interesting. Perhaps it would be too much to ask of a kid who’s having a meltdown.

My thirty minute “time out” when by quickly. I was surprised. I frankly didn’t know how long they were going to keep the silence. (Yes, I should have checked ahead of time!!)

Could I do it at home? I’m not sure. There’s always the option of “praying ceaselessly” but that’s not what’s going on with these periods of silence. In other words, one can maintain a sense of mindfulness throughout the day and while doing all your activities. This period of silence was a different kind of mindfulness and attention.

I’m glad I did it.  Will I do it again with the sisters? Maybe. I have to confess that I did cycle through a little bit of “Oh my God I am so busy. I have a gazillion things that need to be done. I don’t have time to “waste” sitting around doing “nothing” — literally! — for thirty minutes.

I’m grateful for having the thought come to me that it is precisely in such harried, stressed out times that we could use a little “time out” like this.

Some notes are left on a bulletin board near the front door. But others are left on the floor. They let you know who is out. This is for safety, too, I suppose. But there’s never any guessing. There’s no, “I wonder where Sister X is?” There are notes that are “pre-made” not necessarily written just for that day.

When the sister comes back in, she picks the sign up and puts it back in an envelope on the bulletin board.

Here’s this week’s installment of how you know you’re living in a convent!

1. When you feel over-dressed because everyone else is wearing sandals.

2. When you take an active interest in how to reflect the Feast of the Stigmata in the next evening’s dinner. (My contribution was to suggest we have something “Italian”, which one of the sisters did by putting lots of oregano in the casserole. The prize has to go to Sister E who made tapioca for dessert. It had cranberries and bittersweet chocolate nibs. The cranberries – red for the Stigmata – and the chocolate for the “bittersweetness” of Francis’ experience. Yep, definitely living in a convent!)

3. When you actually feel a little pride in being able to sing along, not with a Motown classic on the radio, but while people are chanting.

4. When you are summoned to meals by the ringing of a little bell.

5. When you finally stop offering to help clean up after meals because everyone else has already jumped into  “nun” mode: they each have a role which they execute with absolutely unearthly efficiency!

6. When you ask your students a question in class and noticing that it could be answered with a salacious remark, you append the question with “Keep it clean!”

7. When you’ve parked in front of the convent, getting your stuff out of the trunk of your car, and have a Zip-Lock baggie with a pound cake loaf in it, and a Black guy in his car rolls down the window and calls out, “Hey sister! I know you don’t need that cake!” and you’re confused for a moment as you think: “Am I really beginning to look like a nun or is he just calling me “sister” because I’m Black?”