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FIRST WORDS FRIDAY: WEEK 10 – 2019 – THE NUN’S STORY

March 9, 2019 By Sandra Heska King

The Nun's Story

The Nun’s Story by Kathryn C. Hulme, copyright 1956, was a Book of the Month Club selection that reached #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. My friend’s dad, who was our mailman, tucked it in our mailbox addressed to my great-grandmother. I read her books–maybe not when I was 7, but a little older. This was the book that inspired me to be a nurse--specifically a missionary nurse–in Africa. Kenya, to be exact, though Sister Luke served in the Congo. Maybe I was confused by the “K” sound. We once sponsored a Compassion child from Kenya until she moved out of the program area. So far, that’s the closest I’ve gotten to Africa. I did become a nurse and did do some mission work–though not as a nurse.

I also thought I might become a nun–which was interesting since I didn’t grow up Catholic. Well, my mom did, but my dad was Lutheran–so they were married by an Episcopalian. So goes the family story. But my great-aunt was a nun–a teacher in New York–and she wore the black habit. She came to visit once, and we picked her up at a train station. My mom said I exclaimed, “Mom! Look at all the penguins!” That was the only time I met her, but I often wrote to her, and she wrote back. She could only write at Christmas and Easter, but once she got special permission from her Mother Superior because I had written a particularly long letter inspired by Jo from the Little Women. Aunt Emma could not stay with us as she had to stay at a local convent. But Mom cooked for her. I forget what she made, but she accidentally poured rum (instead of what she was reaching for) into the dish. The rum was some my great-grandmother, Aunt Emma’s sister, was saving for a fruitcake. Mom was mortified that she might have sent Aunt Emma back to the convent with alcohol on her breath. Aunt Emma never breathed a word

Anyway…

The editor of The Atlantic Monthly wrote this on the front jacket cover:

“In many of us the need cries out for more privacy, for a less distracted, more dedicated life than circumstances permit. This need for inner renewal so beautifully certified by Mrs. Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea is now illuminated for us by a new witness, The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme . . . To read The Nun’s Story is to be brought within the radiance of a noble, deeply felt experience.”

Hulme wrote the book based on the experiences of a friend who immigrated to the United States. Hulme sponsored her.



First words from The Nun’s Story – chapter 1

The short black cape hooked at the neck and dropped without flare to the middle of the forearms. it was odd to be thinking about Lourdes as she put it on, as though that recent experience had had something decisive to do with her choosing the religious life.

She bent her elbows and brought her hands together beneath the cape. It was a practice garment of sorts, to be replaced by the nun’s robe after the six months’ postulancy, after her hands would have learned to stay still and out of sight except when needed for nursing or for prayer.

Forty other young women, mainly Belgian like herself, with a few English and Irish girls, stood with Gabrielle Van der Mal in the anteroom to the cloister, putting on similar capes but taking more time about it, especially some red-knuckled girls from farms who seemed to be searching through the folds of their capes for sleeves.

Lourdes, she though, I’m not that impressionable. But quite suddenly she was riding again in the hospital train that made the annual pilgrimage, the only lay student nurse from the training school chosen by Sister William to help escort the convoy of bedridden patients from Belgium. The faith of the prostrate pilgrims that they would survive the journey, and, moreover, return from there cured, frightened her. Her pulse-readings, her diagnostic eyes, even her nostrils that knew the smell of death told her that some could not possibly live until Lourdes and she ran to Sister William crying, Fevers, blood-spitting, cancers advanced to screaming stage and not a sound out of any of them except crazy hopes; I’ve got three in the car who should be receiving last rites this very instant, Sister. And Sister William had stopped her with a look. No one will die en route, my child, they never do, she said. I’ve taught you many things, Gabrielle, but what you are soon to see is beyond my competence to describe or prepare you for. Now say a Pater for having called faith a crazy hope and go back to your duties.

Have you read The Nun’s Story?
What did you want to be when you grew up?

Did you?
Have you ever had any crazy hopes?

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Filed Under: Blog, First Words Friday

Comments

  1. Martha J Orlando says

    March 9, 2019 at 3:47 pm

    Wow, Sandra, another wonderful book to put on my wish list. Can’t believe I’ve never even heard of it before. Thanks, as always, for these “first words.”
    Blessings!

    • Sandra Heska King says

      March 18, 2019 at 10:00 am

      Martha… There’s a movie, too. With Audrey Hepburn. 🙂

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It’s Inauguration Morning. Prayers for the incoming and the outgoing. Prayers for all of us because we are all exhausted. Prayers for peace and patience and safety and wisdom and more compassion and more kindness and more love and unity. And, please Lord, no more virus.
“Courage, dear heart.” 🌱 “. . . I am the “Courage, dear heart.”
🌱
“. . . I am the great Bridge Builder”
~ Aslan in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
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A plea... can we stop with the caustic criticism and the tearing down and the canceling and the division and focus on listening and compassionate conversation and love and generosity and unity? Can we take courage, dear hearts, and become bridge builders?
“To know what *would* have happened, child?” s “To know what *would* have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.”
🌱
“Oh dear,” said Lucy.
🌱
“But anyone can find out what *will* happen,” said Aslan.
. . . 
“Go and wake the others and tell them to follow. If they will not, then you at least must follow me alone.”
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~ from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. ~ Psalm 133:1
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I expect that goes for sisters, too.
One of my favorite poems in friend @jody_lee_colli One of my favorite poems in friend @jody_lee_collins new book is the last one, "What My Grandkids Will Say About Me on Oprah." I sent it to my daughter @aeking8511 and asked what she (or her kids) would say about me. She sent this back to me and clarified that it was a quick flow without proofing. It made me laugh and also made me teary. I did *not* ask permission to share it. But I just had to.

“I don't know that I've ever watched Oprah, but I would say:

“When my kids talk to Oprah about their Nama, they will express her love for books, taking trips, and taking pictures of frozen iguanas.

“Our Nama would send us books all the time. She knew we needed to get off the electronics and get lost in our imaginations like she did. But the truth is, the books we received weren't even 1% of the books that Amazon sent to her house.

“She loved to take pictures, causing our car ride from point A to point B to randomly stop in the middle of the road. Papa learned very quickly to hit the brakes and pull over because maybe--just maybe--there might be a bird sitting on a fence near a weathered barn.

“Her love for trips was inspiring, because unlike our Mom's trips of margaritas and sunshine, our Nama's trips were to Haiti and places where she could love like Jesus loved. And write with other writers, to dig deep and write--wait, besides poems, what did she write again? Anyway, she met a lot of friends through writing and going to places like Haiti. Even if they had to be escorted by big men and guns to the orphanage in Haiti, or possibly die in a hurricane, she didn't care. She took those children back in her heart and never let them go. And if she didn't already have us, she may have physically brought them home.

“Our Nama was special. She made the best lasagna and goulash, and her scent emanates through her favorite perfume--Amazing Grace. She even bought us some so we can smell her any time we want.

“P.S. If you ever see a frozen iguana, stand still and take a picture.”
🌱

https://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Pilgrimage-Jody-L-Collins/dp/1736277413
Pondering words before speaking them. Pondering words before speaking them.
There was good in 2020. But most of it was awful. There was good in 2020. But most of it was awful. Awful. Awful. Awful. Yesterday was horrific. My prayer is that our leaders—that all of us—after sitting a short season in the ashes—can rise above the rubble, refined by the fire. That we can find more love, more compassion, more kindness. That all of us can work together to solve problems. That we can agree to disagree. That we can speak words that heal and not destroy. May 2021 be a year of new beginnings.
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What are you doing today?
D: Wow! Your foot is really black and blue. Me: I D: Wow! Your foot is really black and blue.

Me: It's yellow.

D: It's colorful. It's pretty. It looks almost like the northern lights.

Official diagnosis from my PT order: "Lateral malleolus avulsion fracture." That's a bright side. It could be worse. But apparently I still won't be running any marathons any time soon. He ordered PT 3x a week for 6 weeks. We will see about that. 

I will spare you a picture of my northern lights. But here’s some purple ones from a neighborhood walk when I *didn’t* fall. And how about this one of Kolbie and Brooks instead? This lights up my life. (Sorry @ryeruffking - I just had to steal-share it.) 

Also, I could be sitting up north cuddling Brooks, playing Legos with big brother Dax, and getting my makeup/hair/nails done by Kolbie. All in due time. Hopefully, before Brooks starts walking and Kolbie starts kindergarten.
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIT MDCCCXXXIII: 106 BY ALFR In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIT MDCCCXXXIII: 106
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
🔔
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
 The flying cloud, the frosty light:
 The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
 Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
 The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
  For those that here we see no more;
 Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
 And ancient forms of party strife;
 Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
 The faithless coldness of the times;
 Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
 The civic slander and the spite;
 Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
 Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
 Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
 Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
🔔
I hope your new year is filled with more sunshine than clouds, more joy than sadness, more laughter than tears.
#2020bestnine #bestnine2020 #topnine2020 #2020bestnine #bestnine2020 #topnine2020
Taken on December 19–technically still fall. Yes Taken on December 19–technically still fall. Yes, Virginia. There is fall in South Florida.
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Speaking of fall. I took one Saturday night while out for a walk. We hadn’t been home for even an hour after celebrating Christmas with our son and family, including our new grand boy.
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I think I’ve posted this every year since I wrot I think I’ve posted this every year since I wrote it...

Seed of Yahweh

I’ve been thinking about this seed of Yahweh
conceived in love, then planted in the cave of a woman-child,
confined and nurtured in her soft dark womb,
nourished with her every heartbeat.
.
How cells of cell multiplied until he fluttered light,
then stretched and rose like yeast bread in her warm belly
until her body could no longer contain him.
.
How the walls closed in, contracted, kneaded,
and she expelled him down that painful passage toward the light.
How with a gush of blood and water he slid wet into the night
and was laid in a cold stone trough.
.
Whose hands touched him first, this son of man?
His earthly father’s?
Some midwife's?
Did his parents count his perfect fingers–
the fingers of God himself?
.
I think about those tiny hands that fisted around their fingers,
that held their hands as he grew,
about those hands that planted seeds in soil,
shaped wood, chiseled stone,
hands that touched and healed and held a scroll,
fingers that wrote in dirt.
.
How one day he, light of lights,
staggered down another narrow, painful passage,
toward the darkness, pummeled and beaten by hands of others as his own slivered palms quivered
with the weight of a heavy cross.
.
How he was stretched wide, this bread of life.
How this one whose hands pounded nails to build
accepted pounded nails meant to break Creator by created,
and how his mother’s heart exploded
with the pain of it and for the love of him.
.
I think of how his own limp body could not hold him,
how with a gush of blood and water he slipped his earthly life,
and how his mother may have caressed
and kissed those blood-stained hands.
.
I think about this seed of Yahweh,
this son of man, planted in a cave of earth,
confined to cold, dark stone
until the tomb could not contain him,
how he stretched and rose, this bread of life,
and how he comes to us still and plants himself in our hearts,
becomes our heartbeat for the love of us.
So our hearts explode with the pain of it and for the love of him.
.
And we cannot contain him.
.
~SHK, 2011
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~ Michael Card in Luke: The Gospel of Amazement
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I guess that becomes our yoke, our work, too.
“No servant can serve two masters, for either he “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” ~ Luke 16:13
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🌱
It’s all so upside down.
“Salt is good, but if salt has lost his taste, h “Salt is good, but if salt has lost his taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” ~ Luke 14:34-35
🌱
“Jesus’ closing statement about salt seems abrupt. But it is perfectly in keeping with all that has gone before. The salt in Jesus’ area came from the Dead Sea and could contain impurities that would cause it to become rancid. This explains the notion of how salt could ‘lose its saltiness.’ It must remain pure to fulfill its purpose.” ~ Michael Card in Luke: The Gospel of Amazement
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