Lying Awake

What if I have it all upside down? What if I'm the one who knows nothing of God, and the people in the world are actually interceding on my behalf with their ordinary daily struggles

It's a mean story, Helen fumed. An absentee father who demands that his children put him at the center of their lives and beg for his return. Sister Priscilla didn't think it was mean, apparently. She was so in love with God that she had married him, even though she would not see his face, hear his voice, or feel his embrace for as long as she lived. One of us, Helen, thought is flying blind.

Am I really a person who lives by faith? God can surely tell the difference between someone who walks in darkness and someone who walks with her eyes shut. Which am I?

She fell upward into brilliance, where all suffering was released.

In the fire of his embrace, all that was her ceased to exist. Only what was God remained. I am. The cloisterbell, the voice of Christ. He spoke again: I am. She tried to obey but was frozen in beauty, like a fly trapped in amber. She could not move. Nothing exists apart from me. Self had been an illusion, a dream. God dreaming.

The nurse pointed out that identical twins were already clones in a sense, and Mother Emmanuel suggested that the soul to worry about belonged to the person who would have himself cloned at great expense when so many unwanted children were going hungry.

In the beginning we all feel a bit like imposters in our capes and veils and being called 'sister'. But don't worry about it -- just act like you think a nun should when you're not sure what to do, and you'll find that through grace and love you become one.

... "She said that no matter how many times we hear what it costs to follow Christ, we're still shocked when the bill comes, and we wonder all over again if we can pay it. If we make an act of faith then, it counts more than on the days when we feel sure.