3.5

My fiancé is driving me to a nunnery (85).

In And Then There Were Nuns, Christmas finds herself in a midlife crisis of sorts: does she get married again—or become a nun? Unable to shake the idea of joining a convent, she sets off to explore the possibility, ultimately spending time with nuns and monks in a handful of places. Along the way, she is forced to confront a difficult piece of her past.

Now, if you make it past page 3 or so, it should be clear which path Christmas chooses,* but at the time it wasn't clear to her. (If you have yet to make it past page 3, be warned: spoilers below!) She finds it a mixed experience—even as she relaxes into patterns and routines, she chafes against convention (sorry...couldn't help it).

Unfortunately Christmas isn't really for me as a writer; I read [b:What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim|2018455|What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim A Midlife Misadventure on Spain's Camino de Santiago|Jane Christmas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389306840s/2018455.jpg|2022790] last year and was similarly enchanted by the experience but disenchanted by the voice. I stopped wearing makeup, cut off my hair, and stopped coloring it. Catching sight of myself in the mirror one day, I wondered, When did I become a lesbian? (82) (Actually, what galls about that one is that I can't call her out on the stereotype because I fit it too well.) Not really sure what to make of her interest in St. Scholastica (155-156)—in my (admittedly very limited) understanding of her, she was basically...smited down by God? Surely I must be missing something here.** And it just...always felt as if she wanted credit for doing voluntarily the things that the nuns have committed to doing (going without, doing chores, etc.).

But I digress. It's an interesting book, clear though it is that (spoiler!) it's not meant to be:

"I'm afraid I've come to the conclusion that I am not nun material."

"You're kidding," Sister Dorothy Stella deadpanned. "I could have told you that ages ago." (258)

And oh, drat all, I'm still digressing. I think what sits poorly with me is the impression I got that Christmas partly found a mismatch between her life and a nun's life...but that she also partially thought a nun's life wasn't good enough for her. Could I really surrender to a creative gag order, even if God were my boss? Surely He had something better in mind for me (222). And indeed—Jesus informs her in a vision that she's going to help Save the Nuns by writing about them (269).

To be clear (and fairer), I really, really don't think she's actually looking down on the nuns, just that she's pretty set in her ways already and has a rich secular life. I admire her for really making a go of it; it seems to have been a question she really needed to answer before she could move off in other directions. She also addresses some pretty serious parts of her past, which takes guts—both to address in the first place and to write about later. Many of the things that grated me probably wouldn't have bothered me in another book, so I can only conclude that this is largely a case of mismatch between book/author and reader.

*Even so, I assiduously refrained from reading this article until I'd finished the book. Just in case.

**And the Internet tells me that she ended up in heaven, so I guess she probably wasn't smited. (The Internet also tells me that smited is not a word, and that smote or smitten would be appropriate, but I am choosing to ignore that.)

Overall interesting, not quite as good as I had expected, but worth while nonetheless.

Non-fiction account of the author’s spiritual journey to determine whether she would become a nun. I have always been curious about why a person is drawn to become a nun, how they live, and what their daily routine is like. This book answers those questions and does so with a large dose of self-deprecating humor. It also involves making peace with a past trauma in her life and explores the role of spirituality in the modern world. It takes the reader behind the scenes into four monastic communities, two Anglican and two Roman Catholic in three locations: one in Toronto, Canada, two in the Isle of Wight, and one in North Yorkshire, England.

Jane Christmas is a Canadian whose mother is Roman Catholic, and father was Anglican. She has been a journalist and communications manager in the business and non-profit sectors. She has a different background than I was expecting when reading about nuns, as she has been twice married and is a mother with grown children. I had always thought of nuns as part of the Catholic religion and was unaware that they are also part of the Anglican religion. Since her early years, she had envisioned herself becoming a nun, but had never pursued it. After a marriage proposal from her then-boyfriend, she needed to decide which path to take.

I liked that this book comes right out and says it is about the religious life. It does not masquerade as something other than what it is. Her views can be considered progressive, and she takes the church to task on the treatment of women and the gay community. However, to me it reads more like a memoir, a documentation of her journey in faith toward personal insight, than social commentary. I liked that she shows the power of silence, patience, listening, and contemplation in our increasingly distracted, noise-filled society, and how it can help in gaining internal perspective. Recommended to those interested in spiritual journeys or understanding how a modern convent operates.

Discernment is a different animal than decision. Decision is to make a choice. Discernment is the process of making that choice. Sometimes the process is quick and simple; others it is protracted and painful. Jane Christmas’ takes the reader on the road with her when at age 57 she tries to discern if she is called to a religious life.

Jane is born and raised in Canada to a Roman Catholic mother and Anglican father. She is raised with a foot in both faiths. Her father, light years ahead of his generation, exposes her to many different faiths and teaches her to respect all people’s beliefs. As she grows up she chooses the Anglican Church as her home and raises her children Anglican.

There is a very interesting discussion about the weakness of the Anglican Church. It was started as the Church of England by Henry VIII when he broke away from Rome in his quest to marry Anne Boleyn. In England and its former territories it is known as the Anglican Church. In the United States it is the Episcopal Church. The weakness that the author points out is it is a religion governed by committee. There is not one central figure. The church’s beliefs have evolved to different principles in different areas. She also talks about how decisions are debated for decades before a vague statement is released which in turn is debated further. I found this peek into the Anglican world fascinating.

Jane visits several different groups, both Roman Catholic and Anglican, to try to discern whether she is being called to be a nun. I found it interested that she did not feel called to the priesthood since the Anglican Church does ordain women. Her discernment process involves cloistered groups and groups that work directly with the public.

All this would be a very straight forward story of “will she or will she not” become a nun except her life has anything but straightforward. She has been divorced twice, has grown children and accepted a marriage proposal shortly before embarking on her spiritual journey. The main challenge Jane deals with is not the obedience or poverty or even chastity expected of a nun. It is that the discernment process sheds light on a long buried traumatic event and Jane must deal with it in order to move forward.

Elizabeth Wiley does a fantastic job narrating. Her voice is clear and pleasant to listen to. She does a wonderful job of conveying Jane’s fear, uncertainty and curiosity. She also does a great job with the many accents involved, men and women both. The best part of Ms. Wiley’s narrating is that I really got a sense of who Jane is as a person. She seemed to have a little bit of mischievousness to her. I think I would enjoy having coffee and chocolate biscuits with her. The production quality was very good.

I received a copy of the audiobook from https://audiobookreviewer.com in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting. The author, an Anglican woman in her 50s, decides that she may have a vocation as a nun, and sets out to discern whether this is in fact the case by spending time living in 4 convents. I found the author and the tone a bit puzzling - an odd mix of what seemed to be very sincere statements about the power of prayer and the experience of visions, spiritual reflection, and so on, mixed in with a Sophie Kinsella-like jollity that suggested it was all a super-hilarious lark by our kooky heroine. I did enjoy learning about the lives of modern contemplatives, and would have liked more of that rather than so much about the author's own reaction to things.