For weeks I’ve been writing about all the changes that came to the Catholic Church through Vatican Council II in the ’60s – especially for us nuns, who were itching for the church to join the modern world. In just four short years we went from habited, blindly obedient, cloistered beings to intellectually curious, self-possessed, self-directed women ready to plunge in to help a hurting world. Quite a ride, I tell you.
It kind of feels funny, when you descend for two weeks or so into a past period of your life like I’m doing now, and all you experienced - the way you get right in there again and feel what you felt, remember the big insights you got, the parts of books you copied, the friendships that lasted, and even the songs…”yellow bird, high up in banana tree… you sit all alone like me” and… “where have all the flowers gone, long time passing…” “today while the blossoms still cling to the vine, I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine…”
Writing is one heck of an interesting experience. It definitely does a number on time. Today I spooled out words for three hours straight and I was back in Canada when I went to school in London, Ontario, back to Marcel Gervais’s scripture class on the Book of Jonah and the humor of the biblical account and what a hoot Jonah was, who was supposed to be a prophet but ran away and ends up getting a free ride in the belly of a whale to the place where God told him to go in the first place.
Tongue River Canyon in Wyoming where I went to write yesterday. Flower is Indian Paintbrush.