My first encounter with nuns came a few years ago, when I started working for the Collegeville Institute, an ecumenical nonprofit located on the grounds of Saint John’s Abbey. The abbey is home to one of the largest Benedictine monastic communities in North America. When I was hired, I met with human resources and received a pamphlet on Benedictine values that, beyond having read The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, was my first introduction to this ancient form of Christian spirituality. (Norris wrote the bestseller while in residency at the Collegeville Institute. Later I would learn that the abbey had a huge spike in interest from Protestants after Norris’s book came out, which they described as “the Cloister Walk effect.” If you go into the Abbey gift shop today, you can even find a “cloister walk” scented candle made by the monks.) I skimmed the document from HR and, when I got home, stuffed it in a drawer.
It wasn’t until one evening, at a special dinner hosted at the abbey, that I reconsidered the relevance of monastic values in my life. Norris was the keynote speaker, and she had agreed to an interview with me for the Collegeville Institute’s website the following day.
“I’m going to interview K-Nor herself!!!!” I texted my writing group. They sent celebration emoji and GIFs and even more exclamation points. I felt simultaneously euphoric and nauseous at the prospect of meeting my literary hero, whose books had bolstered me when faith felt tenuous.
I convinced my husband to drive an hour north from our home in Minneapolis to Collegeville for the event, but I immediately regretted it when we stepped inside the banquet hall. My husband was no longer a Christian, and the room was filled with them. Monks, nuns, professors of theology, and other professional religious types were mingling near the refreshment table, sipping from delicate wine glasses and nibbling crackers with cheese. I felt a little awkward seeing my coworkers; I mostly worked from home and was used to interacting with my colleagues through my computer screen. And who will my husband talk to? I wondered as I surveyed the crowd.
As the program began, we took our places at assigned seats at a table in the far-right corner. We said our hellos to those we were seated near, inquiring about their connection to the organization honored that night. On the other side of Josh was a woman in her 70s with an enthusiastic grin, slightly oversized teeth, and short, curly, white hair.
“Hello!” she said, shaking our hands and introducing herself as Sister Theresa. I would never have guessed she was a nun from her simple black sweater and gray slacks. We learned she had been on the board of the Collegeville Institute for over a decade and was a member of the women’s monastic community at Saint Benedict’s Monastery a few miles away.
“For how long?” my husband asked.
“Well, I took my vows when I was eighteen,” she replied. “And it will be my sixtieth anniversary soon, my diamond jubilee.”
“Wow,” we replied, in unison.
The noise in the room made it hard to hear across the table, so I turned to speak with the woman seated to my right—a proud new grandmother who was married to a member of the board. Every so often I would glance over to Josh and Sister Theresa, who were happily chatting away. I heard my husband laugh.
Later, as we were walking out to the parking lot to find our car, I asked Josh, “So how was your conversation with the nun? You two seemed to hit it off.”
“She was great,” he said. “People are people.”
“Did you tell her you weren’t a Christian?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I told her that and about my missionary kid background,” he replied. “She didn’t seem to be concerned. She said that she’s a spiritual director and that it’s not her place to judge—that everyone is on a journey with God.”
“Huh,” I said while sliding into the car and clicking on my seatbelt.
Josh drove through campus as the last of the day’s sunlight faded around us. It was dark when he turned the car onto the long unpaved driveway, the headlights shining like two bright eyes, that led us to the lakeside apartment where I would be spending the night alone before my interview with Kathleen Norris the following morning.
“Hey,” he said as I climbed out of the car and grabbed my overnight bag, “I hope it goes well tomorrow. Don’t be nervous, you’ll be great. Remember, she’s just a person.”
I gave him a kiss through the window, resting my cheek against his beard for a beat. “I wish you could stay. I wish you didn’t have to work tomorrow.”
“Me too,” he said, giving me a half hug through the window before turning the car around and starting the long drive back to the city.
The next morning, after a fitful night’s sleep, I showed up early to the abbey guesthouse for the interview. I sat on the sleek, modern couches in the lobby, alternatively smoothing my hair and my papers. When I saw Kathleen Norris walking slowly down the hallway, slowed down by a foot injury, I jumped up to offer a jittery hello. She suggested we take our interview upstairs to the guesthouse living room and kitchenette, which she promised never had many visitors this time of day.
As we settled into the room and found a table to prop up Norris’s foot, I set up my computer microphone and began asking my carefully prepared questions about her experience as a Benedictine oblate and the challenge of maintaining spiritual practices when a praying community of monks isn’t within walking distance. She was gracious and chatty, delving into funny stories about her grandnieces and revealing her love for the Kim Kierkegaardashian Twitter account.
Benedictine spirituality, she told me, is for all of us. Monastic traditions predates major schisms in the church and are, therefore, the common inheritance of all Christians, whether Orthodox, Catholic, or otherwise. It’s a spirituality that she felt no qualms in claiming, even as a Protestant.
As the conversation wound down and we walked back to the front desk of the guesthouse, Kathleen handed me a free copy of Give Us This Day from a display stand.
“This,” she said, pointing to the monthly Catholic prayer book, “is how I stay connected to the spirituality, even when I can’t pray regularly with a monastic community.”
As I took the book from her hands and leafed through its pages, I blurted out the question I had been holding.
“But what about your husband?” I asked her, knowing from her books that her late husband was a lapsed Catholic. They had met and married before Norris discerned her call to be a Benedictine oblate, before she reconnected with God and began practicing her faith as an adult. “Was that hard being in different places spiritually?”
“Oh, he made friends with the monks while he was here,” she said, waving her hand as if to encompass the whole of the abbey. And that was that.
I thanked her again for the interview and, after she walked away, I stood at the front desk for a while, feeling like I could cry. Why had I thought that this person, esteemed author though she be, would have the answers I was looking for about marriage? And why had I thought it would be appropriate to ask her something so personal?
As I drove home on I-94 past cornfields, pro-life billboards, and the outlet mall, I rehashed the conversation over and over, occasionally hitting the steering wheel with my palm. Norris had seemed unruffled. But why? Maybe she hadn’t wanted to talk about such things with a stranger. Yet both she and Sister Theresa showed little concern or fear in engaging with people who had lost faith entirely. Was that a Benedictine thing? It was so unlike the response I saw from the conservative members of our families, who sat Josh down whenever they could and tried to reason with him (making the case for Christ!). It was so unlike my own fear, which wondered if my marriage would crumble without common religious conviction. If you’re not aligned spiritually, then nothing will match up.
Later at home, I dug out the Benedictine values pamphlet I had unceremoniously buried in my desk drawer a year earlier. Virtues distilled from the Rule of Saint Benedict, such as hospitality, respect for all persons, listening, and stability (“to stand firm in one’s promises”), seemed to lend a gentle posture toward religious outsiders while still maintaining a strong, vibrant faith identity.
Whatever those Benedictines had, I wanted it.
So a few months later, I emailed Sister Theresa and asked if I could meet with her for spiritual direction. She invited me to come for an appointment at Saint Benedict’s Monastery, which had served as home base for sixty years of her ministry as a professed nun. At the door to her office, Sister Theresa welcomed me, leading me into a room smelling of paper and candle wax, lined with books on theology and liturgy. Several windows framed a small sitting area with two comfortable chairs and a coffee table. After Sister Theresa lit a candle and we sat in silence, I slowly spilled out the story of why I had come.
“We had these Scripture passages read from Isaiah 61 at our wedding,” I said. “It was all about this beautiful vision of God redeeming the world. Our whole life together was supposed to be centered on that, about letting God use us to bless others.”
Sister Theresa handed me a tissue. I wiped my eyes, then laughed. “God using us,” I said. “What does that mean? Was any of that true? Is God even real?”
My laughter left a sharpness to the silence that stretched between us, my doubt hanging in the air.
“Imagine,” she said finally, “that God can nourish you. Even in this season. Even through this painful experience.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine God creating new rivers in a dry desert or changing ashes into beauty like in the Isaiah passage. But I couldn’t. When I opened my eyes, my blurry vision instead focused on Sister Theresa who sat a few feet away.
I wondered then if God’s nourishment ever came in the form of an elderly nun in a cotton sweater. I wondered if God’s redemptive work ever came through sixty years of life shaped by Benedictine monastic rule.
As a parting gift, Sister Theresa gave me a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict and suggested I journal after reading each section before we met again. This book is not a list of rules to follow but a guide to life, she explained, particularly written by Benedict for his first community of monks to help them live and work together. I held the booklet, so slim that I could slide it in my pocket, with seventy-two very short chapters that cover everything from spiritual practices, what to pray and when, and roles within the monastery. Later I bought a few books on Benedictine spirituality at the Liturgical Press bookstore and made sure to pick up the latest edition of Give Us This Day. As I walked back to the car, my new books under my arm, I imagined myself becoming a Benedictine oblate just like Kathleen Norris. I didn’t know then how brief my brush with Benedictine spiritual direction would be.