First Impressions on Monastic Life: Thumbs Up

So much has happened in the last ten days that I don't know where to start. I am in Alaska on a small island teetering on the border of the Pacific Ocean and the top of the world. I live here with 5 other women- three nuns, one novice, and another long term pilgrim like myself. There is no running water and electricity is scarce (either gathered by solar or wind power). Life is simple with good old fashion work. Water is carried from a spring and filtered. Food is gathered, grown, or caught. Wood is chopped and stacked in preparation for an Alaskan winter. There is a smoke house for the salmon and a root cellar for refrigeration. Laundry is done in buckets with a crontraption that looks like the progeny of a bathroom plunger and a butter churn. Oil lamps light the table, outhouses and bucket baths are available for hygeine and the ducks by the workshed go quack, quack, quack. And the ducks go quack, quack, quack.

I have stumbled on my paradise. There are a few buildings on the island, which contains an area of about 1sq mile. The guest house is next to the workshop and duck coop. The common house, wich houses two nuns and a kitchen looks out over rock outcroppings affectionately named the Muffins. The smoke house and root cellar are on the path to a one room cabin. The other one room cabin sits by cliffs filled with puffins, a 10 min walk from the wood chapel. Buidlings are connected by foot paths winding through spruce and moss-everything forests. The center of the island contains a natural spring. The silence is profound and deep, with sparrows singing, wind whistling, and waves crashing against the cliffs. It is still here.

Although there is plenty of work, the stillness of the surroundings is finding its way into my core so my soul can honestly respond to the call, "Be still and know I am God."

I am being cleansed by this life.

Slowly I feel everything that I knew before- the artifical neon lights, the buzz chorus of one hundred appliances, the exhaust filled air of constant traffic, the partially hydrogenated oils and the cornsyrup high on fructose, the cell phones, coffee, and lonely nights spent drunk on wine and beer, the necessity to know every moment that slips from numerous clocks into space telling me that I am late for everything, the missed appointments, dashed dreams and broken hearts, the vomit of color, anorexic teenage superstars, and permeating feeling of inadequacy- slowly, everything is untangling itself from around my mind and heart setting me into a freedom I thought obtainable only for the birds singing in the trees. But here I am, sitting under those same birds and listening.

As well as the material changes in my lifestyle, my spiritual life has been ramped into a high degree of activity. I am living in a monastery, afterall. I wake up at 3:00am to pray before the morning service at 4:00. Meals start and end with singing and chanting thanks. After working hard, I attend and participate in another service in the evening. More prayers and quiet time follows the service before I go to bed and start it all over again the next morning. On the weekends and feast days, services can last up to three hours. I read during the service, chant prayers and sing in the 5 person choir. I am beginning to find my voice. I am second soprano. Fast are strict and often- Monday, Wednesday and Friday, no meat, dairy, wine or oil. Yes, this includes fish. I am learning the duties of chapel upkeep and struggling to pray constantly throughout the day. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Breath out. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Like a flower afraid to bloom, I feel a warm sunlight beconning my soul to open up and become more, to experience the joy of an everlasting spring. If I were ever in a place to answer this plea, St. Nilus Island is the place to do it.

Life is becoming inspired, spurred on by the desire to heal and grow. This is my garden, my paradise.