Every-nun's Story

Finally found some time to watch Audrey Hepburn in the 1959 movie, The Nun's Story,  and it surprised me by being as powerful as I remembered.  It also surprised me (spookily so)  how vividly Audrey Hepburn's character portrays much of the desire and unnamed longing I have experienced for most of my life.  And finally, it really, really surprised me by how much of my own approach to life was shown here, or perhaps it would be better to say, by how much this movie shaped my internal unnamed longing into a life direction.  As I watched the movie yesterday, I watched my own life unfold.  This may be a conceit, but in so many ways inner experience was faithfully depicted (or foreshadowed) while the outer content was simply clothed in differing garments.

When I was a child, my family and I lived on a street which had a movie theater on the corner.  Oftentimes, if there was a movie acceptable for youngsters playing, my parents would allow me to go to the Saturday or Sunday matinee on my own.  This film was such a film, (as was Lilies of the Field - which I will watch and report on next).  

I was only 8 or 9 when I saw this movie and I remember even now, the earnest desire to devote my life to "doing good" which it inspired in me. (However, it might be more accurate to say the movie gave form, words and images to that which already existed within and which met the movie themes with recognition). 

I can still remember going home and telling my parents that I wanted to become a nun.  We were Presbyterians, so we had no religious orders such as the Catholic Church has, but, my parents, and therefore I, were quite involved with our church so my folks listened with respect and tried to support this awoken aspiration while channeling it into the more (for them) acceptable Protestant mainstream.  I can still hear them saying that I did not have to be a nun in order to be a missionary and spread the Good News" or to do other good works in the world.  I don't remember where the discussion went after this, but I suspect I just clammed up (a normal behavior for me in those days) as I did not have the skill at 8 or 9 years of age to express how it was not the preaching of the Gospel that had lit my fire, but the disciplined life the movie portrayed, the striving for selflessness, the silence, the warmth and the detachment, and most importantly I think, the unwavering love for all - and the forgiveness which is a result of such a love.  (Was this already a yearning to be/embody rather than know about?)

*SPOILER ALERT*

There is a scene in this movie where unwavering love is vividly demonstrated.  A nun, (not Audrey's character), is attacked and murdered by a man (who we find out later has been told by the local witchdoctor that if he kills a white woman he will be freed from the haunting of his dead wife's ghost).  As this nun is being repeatedly bludgeoned, she reaches out towards the attacking man with open arms, and as he backs away from her, she continues to walk towards him with openness. For me this is an embodiment of love and forgiveness, and as such, echoes a similar scene (in feeling) from the Billy Budd movie.  There, Billy (the "Christ figure" - the "innocent") is hung and as the noose is tightened around Billy's neck, Billy verbally blesses one of the characters who is directly responsible for his death. Billy sees, and knows, in his persecutors and the fearful bystanders, as well as in himself: humanness - suffering - helplessness - and compassion.   

What an aspiration to have, to never shut the door on another!  In my growing up years however, somewhere along the line, I lost consciousness of this desire and became deeply embroiled in all the usual activities spawned from fear: getting enough, being enough, doing enough, etc.  

Christianity and I had had a serious breakup in my early teens when I suffered a great disappointment resulting in an even greater disillusionment.  I do not know if I understood what was happening at the time of this disappointment, but I can now see from the perspective of greater years, that it was so.  (I will perhaps write about this event in another blog entry at a later date).  I turned my back on all of "it" without ever rejecting "it". (Does "it" mean "God"?  Does "it" mean the story of "Christianity"?  Does "it" mean the "teachings"? "Jesus"? I don't know).  I just shut the door somehow and no longer saw or heard anything from that quarter.

Then one day I read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and the game was afoot once more.  I could hear and see the very same "truths" clothed in Eastern garb. One day I ran across an event recounted by the Dalai Lama which returned me to ground zero, awakening once more the desire to never stop loving. This is what the Dalai Lama had to say:

“In the Tibetan tradition, in terms of coping with adversity, victims are encouraged to cultivate forbearance and the first stage of that is to develop a sense of equanimity. Forbearance builds up resilience and protects you from giving in to disturbing emotional impulses. A senior monk I know spent 17-18 years in Chinese prison after 1959. In the 1980s he was released and was able to join me in India. Once, when we were chatting about his experiences he told me that there had been dangerous moments during his imprisonment. I thought he meant threats to his life, but he said, ‘No, there were times when there was a danger of my losing compassion for my Chinese captors.’ This is an example of practice in action. He has since been examined by medical scientists who found he has no post-traumatic symptoms. He has physical pains, but no mental unease.”

I wanted to be that monk.  He was alive and "real" in a way that Jesus and Buddha were not.  I had always wanted to be that monk.  I was that monk. And - I was the nun who walked out of the convent door as well as a man who could be hung without losing "love".

During the civil wars in feudal Japan, an invading army would quickly sweep into a town and take control. In one particular village, everyone fled just before the army arrived - everyone except the Zen master, (he was old and would endanger the other monks if he were to try and run with them).

Curious about this old fellow, the general went to the temple to see for himself what kind of man this master was. When he wasn't treated with the deference and submissiveness to which he was accustomed, the general burst into anger.

"You fool," he shouted as he reached for his sword, "don't you realize you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye!" 
But despite the threat, the master seemed unmoved.
"And do you realize," the master replied calmly, "that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?"

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do"   -   Jesus of Nazareth 

Please Call Me By My True Names  - by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow-

even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving 

to be a bud on a Spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, 

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death 

of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing 

on the surface of the river.

And I am the bird 

that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily 

in the clear water of a pond.

And I am the grass-snake 

that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin a bamboo sticks.

And I am the arms merchant,

selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,

refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean

after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate,

my heart not yet capable

of seeing and loving.

My joy is like Spring, so warm

it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.

My pain is like a river of tears,

so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up

and the door of my heart

could be left open,

the door of compassion.