Backcast by Ann McMan

Author:Ann McMan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612940649
Publisher: Bywater Books
Published: 2015-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

Essay 7

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”

How many times had I heard that? How many times had I recited that in the quiet of my cell, over and over—like a talisman against failure? I clung to the words like a lifeline that would lead me off the path of perdition and back into the safe harbor of God’s grace. Over and over I punished myself with the words. Like a flagellant wielding a slender bough of birch.

Countless times. Endless nights. Forever and ever, amen.

“The decision to follow God is not an easy one.” That’s what the Abbess told us as we all knelt before her in our short, white veils. “Many are called, but few are chosen. Some of you will persevere, but others will fall away. For this, we must all be prepared.”

Prepared? Prepared for what? For failure? For mortification? For ostracism? For a lifetime of disappointed hopes?

What kind of affirmation was that? What twisted brand of encouragement was that?

We were young and scared. We were vulnerable and naïve. We had given up everything before we even understood what everything meant. We needed love and encouragement, not odds and prognostications about how many of us were headed toward certain failure.

Even then, I had issues with authority. That alone should have convinced me that this path I had chosen to walk would not be an easy one. A life in the church was all about subjugation—about bending your will to another’s. And not just to one other—but to a sequence of others. All the way up the food chain to the man at the top. Because in the church, as in the rest of life, there was always a man at the top.

“Have many friends,” they taught us. “Have many friends, but not one.”

Not one.

She wasn’t like me. She was smaller. Meeker. She didn’t question authority. She didn’t question anything. Coming here was never a choice: it was a destination. She belonged here and she knew it. Living a life by rule and method wasn’t suffocating to her, it was liberating. Empowering. It was everything.

Have many friends, they said.

Many. Not one.

After morning prayers and breakfast, we worked together in the washhouse. We’d spend hours upon hours bleaching, washing, and ironing. Folded stacks of stiff, white cotton would rise around us like columns in a pagan temple. As we worked, we prayed. We prayed that God would open our hearts to love others as we were learning to love each other. We prayed that we might persevere and take our places among the chosen. Mostly we prayed that the heat and longing that closed in around us like the soft, moist air of the clothes press would dissipate if we remained true to our vows.

Many. Not one.

She held out longer than I did. She had a deeper faith. A less forgiving nature. A greater willingness to embrace the teachings and the strictures of our order. When I would try to talk with her about what was happening—about what I was feeling—she would ignore it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.