"Racing Nuns"
On the window ledge of my home office are two little figurines. They are the popular ‘racing nuns’ you can buy all over the place now. You wind them up and let them race each other to see which one wins!
Far from being a mockery of those embracing the cloistered life, these racing nuns are a reminder to me to make time for quiet, contemplative spirituality.
I have several good friends who are nuns. They are all lively, fun women whom I deeply respect. Once when I was on retreat at a convent, the sisters were playing football in their habits. Now that’s just super cool :) People often have such mistaken stereotypes of monastic people, assuming they’ll be solemn, unsociable and humourless. This is so far from the truth.
I need the racing nuns to remind me to make time for contemplative spirituality, as life has been pretty crazy for the last decade. The kind of Christian worship I’ve been involved in has been high volume electric guitars, drums and big crowds of people. This is the genre I’m known for and what you’ll hear if you listen to my CDs. I do enjoy that form of worship and it seems to be the way I most easily lead others.
However, the way I personally connect with God most deeply is through silence, liturgy, icons, candles and ancient buildings soaked with the prayers of centuries. That’s not what people usually expect me to say – but hey, now you know!
Growing up, I’d spend hours walking across the fields in our village talking to God in the quiet. Or I’d climb a tall tree and sit up there for ages in it’s peaceful branches. I always met him in stillness. We also had a 12th century Church a few doors away from our house, so I’d often sit in there for hours too – just me and God, eye to eye in the silence of that beautiful old building. In my teens when when I discovered writers like Thomas A Kempis and the mystics, I felt like I’d found kindred spirits in their pages. People who were seekers of silence and lovers of listening to God.
People have been surprised to discover this as it seems far away from the electric guitar toting girl with two coloured hair! But this is my mother-tongue and natural language of God-connection. My first visit to a convent was at the age of 15 and it impacted me more deeply than I can express. I’ve since been on retreats at monasteries in both the UK and USA. A highlight was going to Thomas Merton’s Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky.
So my spirituality is somewhat paradoxical. When I lead others, it’s usually high-octane guitars and energy. But to connect one-to-one with God, it’s an old cathedral or a convent. I ask myself if this is a bad thing, or whether it’s just two different ways I express myself? Should I be more congruent? Who knows…!
Over to you:
- How do you most deeply connect with God? Is it through loud, energetic gatherings, or quiet reflective ones? Or a bit of both?
- Have you ever been on a retreat? If you went on one, how would you like it to look?
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