Emerging Nun?

When the six of us gathered the other night for our Creative Collaborative, we were back-and-forthing thoughts in a brainstorming session for the Desperate Sex Lives series. When we got to the week about singleness, (One is the Loneliest Number), one woman made the comment that it wasn't until she surrendered her life completely to God and became content with her life that she met her husband. (The old, magic "Stop looking and then you'll find them", theory.) One man chimed in that he was so glad he wasn't out on that dating playing field anymore. I let my, "Thanks, Ron", purposely drip with inauthenticity. But I smiled.

I know that Lee knew what I was going to talk about. In the Protestant tradition there is not much space for believing that some can be called to singleness. Not only is it usually greeted with skepticism, it is not normally viewed as a healthy way of life, really. Lee (bless him) immediately chimed in with Paul's take on how people should stay single...if they were able.

Anyway, I also talked about how age can change your focus, your hormones, your desires to be paired with another. Then I'm going off on this little passionate soliloquy about priests and nuns and a calling to celibacy and devotion to God, and why didn't we have Emergent nuns, I wonder? Jessica immediately said she could so see me as an emergent nun. (I'm immediately picturing myself in a forest green habit with a cloth band of metallic bronze Celtic crosses lining my wimple.) More brainstorming. Maybe people could ask questions during our gathering about singleness. Maybe Anne (huh?) could be available to pray with other singles who would like prayer about being single. Uh oh. The thing is - I don't know that I'm called to lifelong singleness, though I think I've convinced my pastor and our team that I am. Even though I have been divorced for 11 years now, I'm not sure I want to commit myself to being celibate the rest of my life. Probably a 20-year-old reading this would think those feelings of passion are way behind me by my age, but they're not.

Yesterday a friend at the Ooze posted an article by Capon, and part of it said this:
"One of the difficulties in our thinking about the will of
God has been caused by the crisis of change in the church.
Everyone agrees, of course, that what we need most is To Do
The Will Of God. The trouble is that very few people, unless
they are faking it, know what the will of God for them is.
There is a lot of pious talk about finding out about whether
it is the will of God for you to marry Irving, or become a
priest, or take the veil; but in all honesty, what you are
really going to find out is what your will on the subject is,
and whether you have enough nerve to go through with it."

I've been musing this over. Am I finding God's will by what falls away? My desires for intimacy as a woman may still be intact, but my desire to go out and purposely try to meet someone is nonexistent. Feelings of loneliness surface occasionally, but the bereft feelings of desolation I had when younger have dissipated. Most times I am content with my life, my friends, my God. My Rick, the man I spent a number of years with as a friend, business partner and lover are now gone since his memory of me was mostly wiped away after extensive shock therapy treatments. (I have to pause for a moment here. My gratitude to God for allowing me to have one relationship in my life with a man of fine and noble character.)

"We have, you see, been forced by change into a situation in
which we are either going to have to stop talking about doing
the will of God, or else find a way of seeing it in a new
light. Specifically, we are going to have to find a way of
seeing our now almost inevitable independence as the heart of
our calling - of discovering that our present condition of
flying by the seat of our pants may well be Doing The Will Of
God."

Emergent nun? If there were such a creature, I'm not sure yet. I should call Toni, the young woman I know who has just become a Third Order Religious, and taken a vow of celibacy, though it's not required for laymen or laywomen. Not because I am looking for direction - perhaps my direction lies in things falling away. But because her passion for Christ consumes her so, and has led her to this calling. And I want to taste, even vicariously, the kind of passion that makes someone feel they are not giving up anything when they make this vow, but are walking towards the greatest intimacy of all.

And I should write Lee and tell him I don't want to mislead him. I'm not sure yet that I'm ready to become the first-ever Emergent Church nun. (Though "Sister Anne Marie" has a nice ring to it...)