The Call of the Wild

Whew!  I returned from our monastery in Tucson on Friday after an enjoyable Monastic Experience attended by 9 women.  We covered the topics of discernment, how to do lectio divina, Eucharistic Adoration, skills needed for community living, mindfulness, how to pray the Jesus Prayer and we listened to vocation stories from 4 different sisters.  They also got to help in our Liturgical Vestment Department (no sewing skills necessary!) and help seal popcorn bags for our new work Prayerfully Popped.

One of the women asked the very important questions : "Just what is a 'call'?  How do you know you have one?"  In other words, what does it look, smell, hear and taste like?   As we listened to the vocation stories, it was clear the details of the 'call' were different for each one but there were similarities also.  A call can start out as a 'voice' or idea in your head that seems to come from out of nowhere.  (yes, some people do hear 'voices' and they aren't crazy!)  It can also be the thought or feeling that something is missing in your current life situation...but it may be murky as to what that something is.  Someone may ask you, "Have you ever thought about being a sister?";  and then that question starts to haunt you.  Some people 'know' as a kid that they want to be a religious and as they grow up it doesn't go away.   My own experience was hearing a 'voice' that would NOT go away as much as I wanted it to. (I probably did ask myself at one point if I was crazy or not, I suppose some people would still question that :)

If a call is authentic, one of the primary factors is that 'it' doesn't go away.  Another one is that God opens up the doors for you to follow it.  God doesn't call us to things that aren't possible.  For example, someone may feel called to religious life but have physical or mental health issues that won't allow them to enter a community.  For them the 'call' isn't to canonical religious life but God is probably calling them to some sort of deepening of their spiritual life.  The call is also authentic if after initial hesitation, you actually reach a point where you want to do it.  God doesn't call us to places where we will be miserable.

Lest you think it was all work and no play, on Saturday night we played the dice game "Left, Center, Right" (can be bought for $5 at you local Wal-Mart) for the chance to win some gift certificates to our gift shop.  Everybody gets 3 tokens in this game and you roll 3 dice which determines whether you get to keep a token, have to give one  to the person on your left and/or to your right or have to put a token in the center where no one gets it.  The last one with a token left wins the game.  It's amazing how 3 little dice can bring out a competitive streak and a strong range of emotions in typically calm people.  I have reached the conclusion that the best way to get to know a person is to play a  game with them, their true colors usually emerge.

Sr. Lucia, one of our more wiry sisters, challenged everyone to a limbo contest on Memorial Day afternoon.  She had about about 6 takers.  If I were a Chinese acrobat I might have been one of them but I opted to chronicle the event with my camera lest I need to visit a chiropractor the next day.   My back hurt just watching these women as the bar got lower and lower and lower.
Luckily, no one got hurt!!!...I think.