Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo
location in Carmel, California
Many women find themselves, in middle or late age, longing to realize a strong monastic vocation that, for various reasons, they have been unable to pursue in their youth. In my case, I was raised without any religion whatsoever. In fact, my parents were hostile to religion in general and Catholicism in particular. They were generally narcissistic people, who divorced when I was about 5 and spent the rest of their lives chasing sex, money and glamour.
Their children, my sister and I, were left to our own devices, to learn about life on our own. Consequently, I began to develop the inclination toward art, music and religion - all the beauties of life.
Me, at about age 8
We had a Cuban babysitter when I was about 6 or 7. My mother was working at one of just a very few jobs she ever had. The babysitter spoke no English, so we had to learn Spanish to communicate with her. One day she took us out of the house and down to an enormous Catholic church to attend mass. We were mystified by it all. At one point, a man in a long robe at the front of the church was passing out cookies to lots of young children who were kneeling at a railing. I was hungry. I asked Iday if we could go get a cookie, but she didn't understand what I was saying. I grabbed my little sister's hand and ran up the aisle, dutifully kneeling as I saw the other children doing. When the priest got to me, he asked me, "Have you had your first communion?" I said, "huh?" and looked at him, mouth agape in confusion. He laughed to himself, cast a glance at me and then my sister, and walked past us with the cookies. Red with embarrassment, I dragged my sister back to our seat. We were hungry, darn it! (Food was typically scarce in our house. My body became conservative, and I got fat. My sister was thin as a rail. Go figure.)
When I was about 11 years old, my mother moved us to the beautiful Carmel Valley in California. I was a lonely child and spent many hours riding around town on my little Schwin bicycle with its colorful "banana seat", long handle bars and plastic streamers flowing from the handles. The Carmel Mission, though a long ride from my home, was my favorite haunt. It was open every day and there was no fee to enter.
I loved to wander through the book store and admire the pretty medals and rosaries, knowing nothing of their use or meaning. But I had a fascination for it all. I sensed the mystical message behind the beautiful artistic presentation. The man behind the counter felt sorry for me, I think. Every once in a while he would give me an inexpensive little book mark or a colorful medal of Saint Therese or the Virgin Mary. I was an avid reader and I would hide the medals in my books at home. I am still a collector of medals and holy cards, to a certain extent. I like to keep the holy cards at my primary prayer corner and take a moment during the day to ask for the saints' intercession. Holy cards also make great book markers!
One day, the nice man gave me a pamphlet about the Carmelite nuns. In it, there was an address to write to them. Enchanted by the descriptions of the life of peace and silence, I sent them a letter. This began a short period of correspondence that was brought to an abrupt halt by my mother, who cuttingly announced to me, "do you think they will want you when they find out your mother is DIVORCED?" She pronounced the word with a distinct air of scandal. This would not be the last time that my love of God and my mystical bent would be crushed under the weight of worldly considerations and the pettiness of a woman with her own selfish agenda.
"We know the goal: union with God. You may ask,
'what is union with God and how do I attain it?"
Union with God means seeking to do the will of
God with every choice we make.'"
website of the Carmelites
Carmel, California
Indeed, the nuns did stop writing me. I realize now that, in all likelihood, my mother had written them and told them to bug off, but I was left with the impression that she had been right, that I was somehow tainted by my mother's divorce. Later in life, I would learn that Catholic people DO have a "thing" about divorce, and many Catholic people, lay and professed, use their own misunderstanding of it to discriminate against people, even where the faith itself does not. More about that later.
Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady and Saint Terese
Carmel, California
"Our life with God draws us to the deepest empathy
with the sorrows, the joys and the hopes so confidently
entrusted to our prayers each day."
At the tender age of 17, I left my abusive home and struck out on my own, with nothing but the clothes on my back. My mother had hidden my car keys. I had received the car as my high school graduation present. It was a hand-me-down from my father's new wife who, he said, "deserved better." It later went to my sibling, like nearly everything I had ever been given. (It had been a bizarre home life in which my mother had labeled me the "bad" daughter because I was fat, mostly, but also because I really WAS different. I WAS the "outsider" in a home of bigoted and cruel narcissists.)
Life was very difficult, but despite continuing survival issues including a brief homeless stint, I continued to yearn for God, for peace, for a life of prayer, and a life that meant something. My search was not what I would call successful. I fell in with some Scientologists and spent some time working for L. Ron Hubbard on his "flagship" that traveled between Lisbon, Portugal, to the northern regions of Spain, in Basque country. Franco was still in charge in those days, and Spain was more than a little tense. In the end, L. Ron Hubbard made me tense, with his odd habits and very strange personal aura. I had originally fallen in with these people because of my feeling of love for mankind and a desire to devote my life to the betterment of the human race. I very soon lost confidence in this cultish group of well-meaning people, once I had interacted with its founder.
Scientology flagship "Apollo"
(I lived on this ship in 1974)
From the obvious drawbacks of the Scientologists, I flirted with a form of Buddhism that involved a lot of chanting. An actress friend of mine was wild about this Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, and pushed me to try it. That's all I remember about it, except that all the women I knew who practiced this religion were using it as a way to get things out of life...like cars and boyfriends. It hardly seemed worth the effort and was obviously not a genuine pursuit. Using religion to obtain worldly things is pecuniary, when God is offering us so much more! Surely, there is a bit of The Lord in everything but it is not the THINGS in which He resides on which I set my sights. It is He alone that draws me. In any case, there was no peace or joy for me, and it lasted a very short time.
To be fair, I did very little reading in connection with this religious sect, and the superficiality with which I approached it probably has something to do with my completely dismissive attitude toward it. I have yet to experience a religion that does not have something wonderful to recommend it, so please do not take my word for this religion or any other. It may be wonderful. It just was not wonderful for me.
After some extremely difficult life occurrences, I found myself in an apartment in Sacramento, working in a law firm and spending my free time in meditation and prayer. I had a very big walk-in closet in this apartment on the second floor of a small apartment complex. It was not a very quiet neighborhood, so I used to close myself in this closet and meditate on my oneness with the Lord. I felt his presence within me, and I within him. I wanted more of this feeling. I also wanted to connect to other people who loved the Lord in this way.
I decided that I needed to learn how to meditate properly. So, I picked up a phone book and found a group that sounded East Indian: The Vedanta Society of Sacramento. Oddly enough, though I called the main number, my call somehow rolled over onto the Swami's private telephone and, although Swami Shraddhananda appeared to be alarmed that I was calling him on that number, he was also very warm and welcoming. He invited me to come to the temple and meet HIM.
Interior of the Temple
VEDANTA SOCIETY OF SACRAMENTO
That phone call was the beginning of more than a decade of close association with this group that posited the idea that "all religions lead to God." Well, that sounded nice and tolerant and broad. Plus, they taught meditation. Just the ticket. I became very involved because I did love the meditation and the peace that I felt on the premises.
Being service minded, and not having the distraction of husband or boyfriends, I immediately started volunteering in the beautiful gardens. My plot of land was the Saint Francis garden. I remember, specifically, the begonias. I had never seen begonias before, but these were lovely and I have been captivated by begonias ever since.
The pond at Vedanta Society, Sacramento Temple
I attended the celebrations in connection with various religious holidays (the "pujas") and made some friends, but Swami Shraddhananda was ill and didn't just initiate new "disciples" at the drop of a hat. He was a well respected guru, with many disciples.
On Saturdays, after doing my work, I would sit outside on the concrete while everyone else was inside with the swami, enjoying refreshments and his talk. I couldn't be there because I wasn't one of them. (Do we see a theme beginning to form?)
Swami Shraddhanandaji
Vedanta Society of Sacramento
(my first swami)
I did this for about a year, but then I was let go from my job. A client told me she liked me better than my boss, and he did not like this. I decided to return to Los Angeles, where there was more work and better paying work. When I told the Swami that I was leaving, he seemed upset. Apparently, he had "just decided" to initiate me with a mantra, but it was too late. I was leaving and had no way to stay. (In later years, he would tease my guru, Swami Swahanandaji, saying that I really "belonged" to him! It was sweet.)
Shortly after relocating back to Hollywood, I threw myself into service projects at the Hollywood Vedanta Society. I met Swami Swahananda, who impressed me very much with his wisdom and his humor. We got along famously. I loved spending time with him, visiting in the afternoon after his work was completed, taking one or two walks a day, and basically soaking up everything I could of the Vedantic worldview, the breadth and depth of which continued to entrance me.
I absolutely fell in love with Vedanta philosophy and, after a couple years of involvement, decided to join the convent. There was resistance from the nuns. They told the swami they didn't want me because I was too old and too fat. I think I was 32 years old at this point.
Here I am, "fat" and happy
sitting with the swami and other "devotees."
Finally, he
made them take me. They were being ridiculous. [At one point he had said I should try to lose some weight and "then return to your natural state." He was so funny.] Looking back on my experience with the nuns in the convent, I recognize this behavior as very typical of any American group, religious or secular. People want you to give them your youth, your beauty, or your money. If you don't have at least one of those, no one wants you.
In the convent, we had a large library of books of most of the major religious traditions. The darndest thing happened. Every time I walked in there, I gravitated toward the Catholic books, especially the ones about the Catholic mystics and Catholic religious orders. I also particularly loved the Eastern Orthodox magazines and books like,
The Way of the Pilgrim, and the
Philokalia. I would tell myself that I "should" read the Hindu-based books, but they left me cold, for the most part.
In my experience, the Hindu books sacrificed love and warmth in the interest of justifying the religion through scientific allusions, which I do not believe it has to do.
These Catholic books were my first introduction to Christian history, theology and cosmology, except for the slim pamphlets I'd been sent from the Carmelites as a young girl. In my childhood, I'd never had a friend who was Christian. My mother moved us to another city every year, one step ahead of the creditors or the last boyfriend or whatever. It wasn't enough time to get to know anyone. No one in my family was overtly Christian. My grandmother frequently said, "all you need is the golden rule," and that no one needed to go to church. In my 20's, I had been working in the entertainment industry. I didn't meet any Christians there either.
While mystics like Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Therese of Lisieux were speaking to me through the many books in our catalog and our convent library, the nuns were doing their best to destroy my happiness. One of the younger ones was always screaming at me over petty things. I can't even remember her objections, they were so frivolous. Another spied on me. I would find her standing at my bedroom door, with her ear right there. (Many times, I discovered her standing in the stairwell behind the kitchen, avidly listening to the conversations of the other nuns.) This nun made me take the shower slot AFTER her but would fail to rise in time for it, and then harangue me for taking my shower before her, even though it was in my time slot. Stupid things like this. They generally did every petty thing that women do to ruin the serenity of other women. (My theory is that this is the reason why men are in charge of the world. Women are so busy gossiping about one another they fail to notice when the man takes the prize.
At the same time, the harsh physical requirements of the constant manual labor required from all the "younger" nuns had destroyed my back, my sclerotic hips, my knees and my varicose veins. At one point, I was in a wheelchair. The ersatz head of the convent, fueled by God only knows what, went to the swami and claimed I was "faking" it. He did not buy it for a minute, but he did tell me about it, and finally, I decided I'd had enough. I left the convent, ostensibly to become Catholic and then join a Catholic convent, but that did not work out. More about that later.
I will put a pin in my narrative at this point to make an observation. Mostly, I left the Vedanta convent because I mistakenly thought that the love of one another and the egalitarianism that is so clearly advocated by Jesus and his religion was missing from the groups with which I'd had some experience, up to that point, because of some failure of the religions themselves. I imagined that I had finally found my home in the Catholic faith, and that the meanness of the nuns, the dishonesty, the cruelty and the obsessions about superficial trivialities, would not be part of that shining beacon on the hill - the Catholic Church. Now at age 65, looking back, and having the wonderful opportunity to have delved deep into some form of each of the major religious traditions (as well as some cultish ones), I now see my mistake. I had attributed their merciless torment to some failing of the religion, when they were actually just being humans
After leaving the convent, I began taking RCIA classes at the large Catholic Church near my workplace in Beverly Hills. About halfway through the classes, the nun in charge summoned me to her office and announced that it would be "years" before they would consent to baptize me because I had been divorced.
To be clear, I was leading a chaste life. I had no boyfriend. I wasn't dating. There was no reason to deny me baptism (which is supposed to wash you clean of ALL sin), but this nun was under a misconception, which she gleefully transmitted to me. Evidently, getting a divorce was so sinful in her mind, that baptism couldn't even fix me. I tried to refer her to certain sources that would disabuse her of her mistaken idea, but she was insistent and she was nasty about it. I gave up and walked away. I didn't know a single Catholic and I had no idea what else to do.
Heartbroken, but still wanting to be baptized Christian, I walked across the street to the big Episcopal Church, entered their class midway and was baptized on April 11, 1993. This Episcopal Church was what they call "high church." The music was classical, gorgeous, and inspiring.
The minister was a very masculine woman who made me very uneasy and who rarely smiled. Aside from the female minister, they had all the bells and smells of a Catholic Church but something was definitely missing. Later, I would come to believe that it was possibly the apostolic succession that was so necessary but which was absent. Also absent? The mystical life.
I made some noises about joining an Episcopal convent, but there weren't that many of them, and the mystical life was not emphasized, that I could see. I remember a strange interview with a nun who had no joints in the middle of her fingers. She pointed out the aberration and I couldn't stop looking at them after she made a thing out of it. She was dismissive of my desire to be one of them. What IS it about groups that makes them want to exclude people? Jesus wasn't like that. Anyway, this is how groups are kept small. Perhaps that is the point.
One thing I particularly missed in the Episcopal Church (as in Vedanta and other religions) was Jesus' mandate that we love one another. The Catholic Church had made it clear it didn't want me because I had been divorced, and what could be more unloving than that sort of rejection? I just couldn't seem to find a religious "home". Not having a family, I didn't fit in. I understood that family is a great thing, but why is there no provision for those who do not HAVE one? This is a major failing of the Christian churches, in my mind.
After a period of sadness, confusion, and challenging life issues, I returned to the Hindus by taking sannyas vows by permission of my Hindu teacher. These vows, essentially, make one a female swami. You could say that they are the "final" vows of a Hindu monastic, some of whom live in monasteries, but most live ascetic lives by themselves. I wanted to devote myself to God completely and felt that these vows would help me.
While living in a large apartment complex, I met a woman who was an Ursaline nun. We became friends. I did her genealogy and found that she was my 11th cousin. When I confided to her what had happened to me when I had tried to become Catholic and how sad it had made me, she informed me that the nun who had refused me baptism had been completely wrong. Unless I had been living in an "irregular" second marriage or living in sin with someone, there was absolutely no bar to baptism or confirmation in the church. She offered to sponsor me if I still wanted to become Catholic, and I took her up on it.
Thus began my dual "citizenship," as it were. I was to be a mystic, a renunciate in the Vedantic tradition, as a sannyasini, and the Catholics would be my group.
Once again, I had problems, however, because of my physical health issues. I was unable to sit through the classes and had to pursue a private course. I wanted to be confirmed in the Byzantine Catholic Church that I loved so much but, while the priest was willing to have me pursue a private course, the deacon said he didn't have the time, and he refused me. Once again, the door had been closed on me.
I wasn't going to let this rejection throw me off, however. My cousin had an acquaintance at a large church near my house. We had a meeting with her, made arrangements for my confirmation.
After a period of poor health, trying different Roman Catholic Churches, I returned to the Byzantine Catholic Church that I loved so much. The Byzantines are, essentially, Orthodox style churches that either stayed with the Catholic Church or joined it. I can't remember the specific history. There is only one in New Mexico and it is in the town where I live. The liturgy is very beautiful and is sung by the congregation, without instruments.
In this church, there was a handicapped, retired priest, who I hoped would be my new spiritual director, but he seemed out of his element when I tried to talk to him about it. He seemed to be a man of great spirituality and intelligence, but the mystical life was not something I could talk about with him. He seemed puzzled that I would want to discuss my spiritual life with him. Shortly after joining that church, a new priest came on the scene and took over as the pastor. He is just a couple years younger than the age of my son, if my son had not died, and I looked upon him with a motherly eye.
I offered to fill a need in the bookstore on Sundays, and was very happy to have a little role. It did not last long, however, because the young Ukrainian priest started harassing me in a shocking way, and my physical health became affected.
Rituals are important in whatever faith you ascribe. The ritual of the yearly house blessing is something that the Byzantine Catholics do, and I invited this young priest to bless my apartment. When he arrived, we had a very strange conversation in which it became apparent that he was not terribly well informed about the faith because, when I told him about my history and how hard it had been to get baptized, he mistakenly said that I had to have my previous marriage annulled before baptism should have occurred. He was dead wrong but terribly egotistical. I was surprised that they had put someone in charge of the church who was so poorly catechized himself, but I understood that most Catholics who regularly attend church are married people with families and most had already been baptized as children. You rarely run into a Catholic who was baptized late in life, so there are some assumptions about one another in a parish that are not true for the person who is a convert.
From that time onward, he began to discriminate against me at church. I caught him whispering about me to the other men and sharing jokes with them about me, in small cliquish groups. These men and their wives then began to shun me when I attended church. If I spoke to any of them while in line for the meal after the liturgy, they would turn their backs on me. They would give me that 'look.' You know that look. The look that says that you are not worthy to speak to them. It is that same look from your middle school years, when the 'cool' kids were trying to cut an individual from the herd. I remember once standing in line behind one of the men of our parish - someone about the age of my son. One of the church busybodies inserted herself between me and this young man and very pointedly asked where his wife was! It was obvious that she believed I was "after" this man, but clueless that I was far too old for him to begin with. She did not know me and did not realize I am under vows.
At the same time, the young, callow priest began other strange behaviors, changing his mind constantly about what he wanted to have done in the bookstore and then haranguing me when I did exactly as he had previously told me to do. It was a test of my patience. Frankly, it was exhausting.
The problem with a little church like this, since it is the ONLY Byzantine Catholic Church in town, is that whoever is put in charge of it is, ipso facto, a little potentate in his own realm. You have no choice of other Byzantine Catholic Churches. There is only this ONE, and if you get a priest in there who is a poorly formed Christian with enormous ego needs, you can imagine what happens from there.
But, like a puppy trying to please its master, I did everything I could think of to propitiate the little tyrant. When both he and the retired priest were terribly sick with some virus, I arranged to make a big pot of chicken soup and other lunch items in the parish hall, with plenty left over to get them through the nights of coughing and sneezing. My physical condition was continuing to worsen, and it cost me dearly in pain, what to speak of the food itself, which cost a bit as well. But I was keen to be of use and show my loving nature. Believe me, it was not appreciated. Not a single "thank you" was uttered, and the tyrant continued to treat me like the outcast.
Finally, one day, I was discussing with him the need to have a chair in the book store that was more ergonomic. There was already agreement to buy one. A group of people were in the bookstore, men and their wives. Having an audience, the fledgling priest began a tortuously long puerile "joke" in which he imagined that my nether regions were too big to fit in the seat and how he and his friends would have to pull me out of it by my feet because my large butt would get stuck. To emphasize the point, he acted out all the parts. I couldn't believe it. All the men laughed. It was so funny to them! Their wives just looked at me, stunned, with their eyes widened like cartoon characters.
I was aghast, of course. The inappropriateness and, frankly, the cruelty of it, astonished me. You might expect some drunken wastrel in a tavern to make a loud joke about the size of a woman's ass, but a celibate, supposedly "religious" person? Never. It was completely outside my sphere of experience. I waited until the other people left the bookstore and, as kindly and gently as I could manage, I told him that, here in America, it is considered extremely bad manners to discuss the attributes of a woman's body, especially if you are a religious person. Of course, this isn't appropriate ANYWHERE in the world, but I tried to give him an "out" that would save his face, but I needn't have bothered. He gave a perfunctory apology but continued his brutal campaign. I appealed to the retired priest, but he was of no use.
Later, I learned that the young priest had lied to other parishioners about our interaction. I wasn't surprised. I had finally come to understand how very common it is for people in these groups to target the most vulnerable members and that, even the people highest up in the organization were often the cruelest and most brutal bullies of the lot. This is why, when I considered reporting his behavior to his bishop, I decided not to both. Later, the parish members with whom I'd become friends furiously shunned me when they learned I was opposed to Donald Trump's cruelty toward the babies at the border more than 5,000 of whom he had stuffed into small cages.
As one might have expected, I had enough at that point and I left that church, never to return.
This is where the Catholic Church, in general, has a real problem. Unless you fit into a very narrow "type" you are not easily welcomed. Most welcome are people with families, children and money. They could care less about late vocations of people who did not find the faith until late in life. They want youth, beauty or money - just like every other group. Do not be old, fat, disabled and poor if you expect to be accepted as part of the group. Jesus would take me - but not the good Christians.
I am not singling out the Catholic Church when I say this. It actually has nothing to do with the particular faith itself. This is the nature of people. And people do not alter themselves to accommodate religious precepts all that much. They will SAY that they do. "Oh, Catholicism changed my life" or something along those lines, but Catholic people aren't much different than secular people when it comes to forming cliques.
Hospitality of Abraham
I have recited the most obvious examples of the experiences that have led me to this understanding, but, when I look back on all my experiences with all the religions I have studied and practiced, this is very true. I have come to the conclusion that saints become famous because they're the only people who actually practice their faith unreservedly and, just as the behavior of the people in religious groups is pretty much the same, from one group to another, the saints ALSO have a lot in common with one another, regardless of the faith, whether Hindu, Buddhist or Christian.
There are many many instances of women who chose to absent themselves from society and live a vowed life, alone in the desert or the forest. I now understand completely why they did so because I find myself among them now. I have written about many of my spiritual sisters throughout history, and will continue to do so, now and then, as their feast days occur to me and when I have the time to write.
The rest of my time is spent in prayer and meditation, writing my novel, and artistic pursuits. I have given up trying to become part of any religious group, church or parish. It is not meant to be.
But I DO have a message for the other mystics out there - the women who don't "fit in"
God bless,
Silver Rose Parnell
