If you are one of my students and you googled me ...

mazel tov! You found me.
I recently started a job teaching high school and I suddenly thought tonight, "My students might google me!" There aren't a lot of Jennifer Goodnows out there (I did send friend requests to all the ones on Facebook and got two confirmations) so the kids will find this pretty easily. I always wonder if potential bosses will find it and what they will think. Anyway, I decided I'd better read through the old posts to make sure the blog is "kid friendly" which it is. The whole separation of church and state being another issue altogether.
One of the kids asked me the other day if I believe in God. I thought long and hard about that and I'm still working on it.
Here's what I've got so far.
I have outgrown the theology I was taught as a child. It was appropriate and simplified for children but that Jesus (hippie guy who likes children and lambs) is not the complicated, radical child of God that I know Jesus to be now. Also, God is way more complex when your theology grows up.
I think most people don't move beyond their childhood theology. This is for a few reasons, one being that most people are not as into religion as I or others like me are. I am not into sports and don't know anything beyond the basic rules for playing games and I never wanted to play them in school (and still don't).
I believe that God is far less personified than I used to. I don't think God is a beardy man in the sky. I think God is a force that works for good.
I believe in love, compassion, kindness. That is what I wish to practice, more so than liturgy these days.

From Nun to None

þ Nun

þ None

One of the things I was looking forward to as a nun was the opportunity to pray in communion several times a day – the Daily Office. I also thought it would be interesting to experiment a little with liturgy. I’ve seen orders that use the New Zealand prayer book or work out some special liturgy of their own.

I went to visit a convent in Swaziland run by the Order of the Holy Paraclete, which has its main house in England. I spent two weeks with a great sister and we talked, I asked questions, she answered, we debated theology with others – really amazing. In the course of our talking Sr. Carol said to me that as fewer women were entering religious orders they were going to eventually leave Swaziland and turn the running of the orphanage over to the local people. Makes sense that, rather than a bunch of old white ladies telling black people how to run an orphanage they should train locals and leave the raising of Swazi orphans to them. Sr. Carol told me that if I entered OHP now I’d live in England, do administrative work, and take care of old nuns. I cannot thank her enough for her honesty because all three of those were the exact opposite of what I wanted to do! I said to her at one point, if fewer and fewer women are entering the convent, then who will be there to take care of me? Or would I be the last nun standing? She replied honestly I could be the last nun standing. I envisioned myself freezing my old ass off in an NHS nursing home in northern England. No. Thank. You.

The other thing that Sr. Carol said was people bemoan the state of religious orders because they are shrinking but the work that nuns and monks used to do, governments and NGOs do that now. She said the Holy Spirit has something new in mind for the church and I believe her.

A year or so after that I started going to an emerging church called St. Lydia’s. It was in the Lower East Side at the beginning of its ministry and now is in Brooklyn. The Eucharist is set around a dinner, like the early church. People cook the meal, serve the meal, eat, talk, break bread, drink wine in remembrance of Christ. I became fairly active in that church and made a lot of new friends. St. Lydia’s moved to Brooklyn and I kept going for a year but the commute was worse than my daily work schlep and a few other factors made it less appealing for me to go.

I am now in a stage of not going to church. I don’t miss it at all which surprised me at first. I’ve been going to church my entire life. I don’t miss Eucharist, which is a big deal to Episcopalians. We take it weekly normally and daily at best. I definitely don’t miss volunteering. My job feels like a community service so I don’t need church to fill that aspect of my life. What really surprised me is that I don’t miss community. I tried a new church about six months ago and the very first thought that popped into my head as I walked in the door was, I don’t want to make new community. Huh. Maybe at this stage in my life I have enough?

They say that once you’ve seen how the sausage is made you can’t eat it anymore. That’s the institutional church for me. Institutional church so doesn’t do it for me now.

I think I’m becoming a “none” as in the box I’d check on a form that asked my religious affiliation.

I believe in God. I believe in Christ. I believe in compassion for my brothers and sisters.

I practice love, compassion, mindfulness to the best of my ability.

Two Types of Prayers

Someone once told me there are two types of prayers. “Help me, help me, help me.” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I pray the former quite a lot and then have to remind myself to pray the latter after my issue is resolved.

I think some of us have a hard time praying the help me part. In America we are taught to be independent, pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, you can do anything if you just work hard enough, you can be the President of the United States of America. I’m not sure how many of us are taught at home and in our religious houses to surrender our wills to God.

I have learned over the years to pray for help. That requires that I come to the point where I admit I can’t do it all by myself and I need help! It used to take a lot of pain to get me to that point. Fortunately, I recognize the signs earlier and ask for help a lot quicker these days, bypassing a ton of trouble.

What I’m practicing now is asking for help in a different way. I used to ask God for help, and then tell God exactly how to help me. Can you imagine the arrogance? I used to pray for a specific outcome!

Now I’m still asking for help, but these days I mean the willingness to  accept whatever God has in store for me. I found that when I stopped praying for specific outcomes and started praying for resolutions, God’s solution was so much more elegant than my own!

The next time you are in a bad situation, ask God for help. And that’s all. Just help, whatever that looks like. See what happens (also, have the patience to wait for the resolution, God’s time is not what our time is). Take note of the outcome. Set it as a precedent and remember it the next time you have a problem.

Back in the saddle again

I saw a job posting in the writing section of craigslist that was looking for a blog writer for a pastor. I am not a pastor but I can certainly write that way and I submitted a sample. I decided that if I didn't get the job, I would start posting on my own blog. It's good writing practice and it might help me with my spiritual journey which is stopped at a truck stop somewhere. I will write on a regular basis starting with this (this is the sample I submitted).

 Across a Crowded Room …
Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see him
Again and again.
Once you have found him,
Never let him go.
From South Pacific by Rogers and Hammerstein

Most of us living in New York City are looking for love. Even if we tell all our friends we are done looking, we’re still looking. We scan faces on the subway, at a party, at the office, thinking, “Is this the one?” Some of us may even be in a committed relationship or married but still looking for love!

 What I’m going to suggest may sound … weird to you. But, hear me out. Instead of looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend to “complete” you, look for God. Let the love of God “complete” you. If you feel there is something in your life that is lacking, that is God’s way of telling you, “Here I am! Across a crowded room!” 

And that room is crowded! It’s crowded with all sorts of distractions we use to avoid God; work, friends, family commitments, the gym, Facebook, Pinterest, Saturday night out with friends. But God loves you and is calling to you. It might not seem to you that God is calling to you. But get beyond the racket of that “crowded room” and listen. You will hear God in a whisper, a persistent whisper. And what God is saying, over and over again in that whisper is, “I love you.”

God has a plan for your life. God held your hand through the hard times of your past. God is with you right now. God is waiting for you in your future. God is looking forward to you uncovering the great plan that is just for you. But, you can’t do it on your own. You need God’s help and God is always willing to help.

 I suggest you say to God, “I’m listening! Take my hand and guide me to the life you have in store for me. I’m willing, with your help. I love you, too.”

 Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

lydia, oh lydia, oh, have you seen lydia?

so, i'm realizing a whole lotta things all at once which is pretty flippy trippy.
1. it's looking like i am not going to be a nun in the traditional sense.
2. this should not surprise me as i am not an altogether traditional person.
3. it did surprise me at first, but i am getting my head wrapped around it.
4. when i was in swaziland, staying with sr. carole at ohp's orphanage, she told me that convents around the world are getting smaller with fewer and fewer women entering them but that it's ok. god has god's seasons and maybe the holy spirit has something else in mind for the church now. something new. she reminded me that when the anglican church started seeing a grass roots building up of religious orders in the mid-19th century, the holy spirit was guiding that. now, governments do the work that nun used to do. ngo's do that work.
5. once i got back from swaziland i was faced with something i had been putting to the back of my mind b/c i was so focused on getting to africa. something that had been bothering me a lot lately and this is it: i stopped going to church b/c i was burned out on over-extending myself there. i missed the eucharist though. this summer i went to mid-day eucharist services at big churches and the cathedral. i have been in the episcopal church my whole life. i went to catholic school as well which is similar in liturgy. all of a sudden, the mass was starting to look silly to me. a man or woman wearing a ridiculous poncho thingy whose origins were ancient and useless today, waving his or her hands over the magic goblet and cookies. the whole eucharist was starting to look like harry potter to me. i definitely wasn't feeling the presence of christ. i wasn't seeing the connection between this and christ's message of love, integrity, hope. instead, i was getting caught up in the show and flash.
-allow me to interrupt myself to say this is strictly a personal experience. i am not saying that the eucharist is silly or the traditions of the episcopal or catholic church. it's just not working for me anymore.
6. i've started going to an emerging church in alphabet city. it's called st. lydia's and the service is - we cook a large dinner. we meet in the narthex (st. lydia's rents space from a lutheran church) and sing plain chant. we go to the sanctuary where dinner tables are set up. an ordained person blesses the bread (a delicious baguette) and we all pass it around. we eat dinner together. once we are done eating, we read a bible passage aloud. the person in charge for the day gives a mini-sermon on the passage. we share our understanding of the passage. we hold up our wine glasses at the end of the meal and the wine is blessed. and that's communion. it's an agape meal, like the one the early church people used to have. it's intimate, personal, community. it's lovely. sometimes it's messy and scruffy, just like christ and his followers. i'm really enjoying it.

i had to post this link a lady-priest friend of mine posted on her facebook page.

top ten reasons why men shouldn't be ordained

u.u.

i just took that belief-o-matic quiz on beliefnet.com and came up a unitarian universalist ... AGAIN! i took the quiz for the first time several years ago and my results were similar. episcopalian didn't even come up in my list as also rans.
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (93%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%)
4. Liberal Quakers (88%)
5. New Age (87%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (86%)
7. New Thought (83%)
8. Hinduism (79%)
9. Theravada Buddhism (79%)
10. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (77%)

good think i'm an episcopalian! there's plenty of room for people like me in the episcopal church.

back home and thinking, praying, meditating

i've been back for a week and half or so now and i've been:
*thinking
*praying
*meditating
*listening
*talking with a lot of people - a friend who works for episcopal relief and development and i'm meeting with someone in the mission office at the main office of the episcopal church (affectionately known as 815 due to its address of 815 second avenue in nyc).
i've also been talking with priests, pastors, nuns, and laypeople because of some thoughts i was having before i left for africa but put to the side because i was so focused on getting to africa. now that i'm back, i am having these thoughts again. and here's what i'm thinking. when i go to church and i watch the priest bless the bread and the wine i'm reminded that since we lived in caves, humans have always had a need for shamanism/magic workers/religion/spirituality. i think that's what the ritual of the church fills - when the priest stands there wearing big, colorful robes, waving his or her hands over wafers and a fancy goblet of wine ... it looks like a magic show or something to me suddenly. it looks incredibly silly. i've been going to the same church since i was 12. before that, i went to catholic school and i've been watching priests do this since i was small. i don't believe in transubstantiation and i'm not required to thank god (literally) but i've never thought the eucharist was silly before. now, i really have to ask myself - what is the purpose of this? why is this priest wearing that silly outfit that (s)he would never wear in normal life. why is (s)he waving her/his hands over these bits of bread and wine? what has this to do with the christian message? with the good news of jesus? with love your enemy?
i think part of it is that i'm just not feeling it at church these days. it feels like motions to go through, not a genuine reflection of god's love for her people.
i'm looking at emerging church. i did some research and found anglimergent and some emerging churches in manhattan. i also watched brian mclaren's keynote speech to the diocese of d.c. at their convention which i highly recommend.
i also found some stuff about neo or new monasticism. you'll just have to google that one, i can't include all the links. there's a house in north philadelphia that i'd like to visit. it's called the simple way. closer to home there's radical living. just looking at the websites they seem like intentional living communes. they're neither of them episcopalian but they are christian. they don't pray together like how traditional nuns do the daily office but they are living the message. st. francis once said preach the gospels. use words if necessary. that's what they are doing.
but, this is just the beginning of my search.

overseas nun sighting

so, despite my doubts that i should be a religious, i'm still seeing nuns. i saw one in the johannesburg airport the day i was leaving (god is so ironic and bitchy). today, in london, i was waiting for the lift (elevator) to take me up from the tube (subway) station and saw a nun in white habit reflected in the shiny lift doors. i turned around and smiled at her (grimly).
last hope - order of st. helena's in augusta, georgia. they have something going on in ghana i believe. i'll call them when i get home.
please keep me in your prayers because i am really confused.

lots to think about

i'm in england now - london. i'm heading to whitby tomorrow. i've just been in swaziland for close to two weeks. when i get home i'll put pictures up. the sisters from ohp run an orphanage for girls who have been abused in swaziland. they have 25 girls right now and 8 are hiv positive. the girls were so sweet and fun and good. i worked with a few of them on homework and one girl in particular on reading. i won't go into the girls' stories but many of them are horrific. a lot of rape.
i had some really good, long, intersting talks with sr. carole, ohp. she runs the orphanage with sr. karan but sr. karan is in england for chapter so i didn't get to meet her. i don't think she'll be there when i am at whitby either. that's ok though.
here's some of what came from my conversations with sr. carole:
- this convent is closing up its work in africa. they've recently closed their house in johannesburg. sr. carole doesn't expect them to be in swaziland but a few more years.
- if i do enter ohp (or any other convent when i think about it) i would not go to africa or i would only go for a little while.
- instead, i would probably do administrative work at the mother house.
- i would probably also take care of the older sisters.
- what will the convent look like in 40-50 years when i am old? will there be anyone to look after me? would i be the last nun standing?
- am i really going to give up my pension for that?
to be continued ...

getting from point a to point b

i'm leaving on monday for africa to visit the order of the holy paraclete at their house in swaziland where they run a girl's orphanage. i am flying into johannesburg. flights to swaziland are sold out (i'm imagining a 10-seater plane made of balsa wood and rubber bands). there's a backpacker bus tour that goes to swaziland - the last bus leaves at 9.15 a.m. and i arrive in the jo'burg airport at 8.35 a.m. there are minibus taxis but they seem dangerous at best. the vans are in bad condition, the drivers are insane, they don't go direct but will drop me off at a location and tell me to change buses. meanwhile, i'll be alone with a u.s. passport, money, and a vagina. the state dept. and british home office websites basically say that if you're a woman you'll be raped as soon as you set foot in jo'burg. great.
i'm a seasoned traveler but this is nervous making.
so, please pray for me to get to bulembu in one piece with my passport, money, and hoo-hoo intact.

vocation trip

i am going to africa - to visit the order of the holy paraclete's convent in swaziland. they run a girl's orphanage there. they moved their convent to a town called bulembu - a mining town that was converted to a village that has job training, a hospital, and a school. i'll stay two weeks and then i'm going to the mother house in england.
i probably won't be able to post from africa - but i'll take a lot of photos and post when i get home. i'm not leaving until late july. i can't wait! i'm so looking forward to seeing the convent in africa and the orphanage. i feel a step closer to the goal.

two nuns at one street fair!

where are all these nuns coming from? one at the beginning of the 2nd ave. street fair being held on 3rd ave due to 2nd ave subway construction on 2nd ave. a veil and a polyester suity type thing. the other i saw on my return saunter through the fair. wearing a brown habit with a peaked veil - black i think, maybe brown. can't remember. i had two friends with me so i'm not making these sightings up and their not like snuffaluffagus.
i'm working towards it. i wonder if once i do enter an order i'll stop seeing nuns (other than the ones i'll be living with of course).

the question of kids

when i first heard the call to the religious life i said to god, "no f#%*ing way!" i was planning on getting married (preferably to a pediatrician/veterinarian) and have children (two and send them to collegiate). so, i thought for a long time about why those things were deal breakers for me. i came to the conclusion at the end of my think that marriage i could definitely live without. i really only wanted a wedding anyway, not necessarily a husband. kids though, that was tough. i had always wanted to be a mother. so, i decided that since i figured god didn't make a mistake in calling me to a live of poverty, chastity, and obedience that i would at least have to be able to work with kids. so, i got my master's in teaching english as a second language to K-12 grades and began teaching 5 years ago. i hope that when i do enter the convent, they'll look at my experience and qualifications and let me keep teaching as a religious.
i still love kids but .... i'm ok now without having any of my own. they say that teaching is the best birth control there is. it's working for me. 25 kids in school is way different than one or two at home but still.
all joking aside i think i can do better by NOT being related to children because they'll be more likely to open up to me. when i was a teenager especially i relied on my relationships with adults who were not my mom (my dad had died by then) - esp. my youth group leaders from church. they totally rocked. i hope to be a rocking nun.

astoria, queens nun sighting

saw a nun and a woman who might have been her sister, actually, on 30th ave. when i was getting my lunch today.

nun sighting

an asian nun in a slightly peaked veil entering the subway station as i was exiting. i had a real pang after she passed me - i want to be a nun.

you may be a nun if ...

the universe may be telling you that you are a nun if you ...
+ sing the magnificat in plainsong chant style while walking up or down stairs alone
+ pray over your fresh laundry
+ see nuns everywhere you go
+ see nuns so often that now even your friends are seeing them in airports and stuff
+ think meryl streep's character in the film doubt was a hero and you hope to be a nun just like her when you grow older
+ have the book of common prayer online version saved to your favorites on the blackberry
+ love your pet dog but start making plans for the next phase of your life for after she dies

the empty mouse house

when i was in first grade at st. ignatius loyola school we used to go to church for holy days of obligation. this was back in the days when i didn't know i'd been baptized episcopalian. i went to catholic school b/c i wasn't zoned for a good public school and my mother and her mother went to convent schools so on it went with me. i used to look at the tabernacle which was very fancy, made of marble with golden doors, and i pretended it was a house for church mice. i call it the mouse house to this day.

so, tonight we had our maundy thursday service at my church and the foot washing is always a funny thing (i had my foot done - we only do one). i love the part where simon peter tells jesus - you won't wash my feet! only to change it to - wash not only my feet but my hands and head also! what a doofus. i love simon peter because he is the disciple who consistently puts his foot in his mouth (let's build a booth on this mountainside where we saw jesus transfigured! i can walk on water ... oops! no i can't! what a dope.). he is just like me - duh!

anyway, it was a festive kind of service (for episcopalians, honestly, i cannot WAIT to get to africa and see how they worship there) with all of us standing around the altar table, passing baskets of bread and cups of wine to each other for eucharist.
then, we went back to our pews and the priests stripped the altar and sanctuary of all decorations while a quartet chanted the 22nd psalm. it's always very moving for me and really gets me into the spirit of the mourning and loss the disciples must have felt during these few days. at my church, the priests remove pew cushions, hymnals, books of common prayer, those table cloth things (there's some fancy liturgical name for them but i don't know what it is). the final thing to be removed is the consecrated bread and wine that is in the mouse house. there is an eternal flame over the mouse house and that is extinguished. then, the bread and wine are taken away, and the mouse house door is left open, an empty mouse house exposed. i am telling you it gets me every time! i don't believe in transubstantiation per se but it hits me like a ton of bricks every year when i see that! and i think to myself - i miss him! where is he?! when will he be back? i get really lost and sad.

nun sighting - with backup!

i saw a nun on the subway today and i was with a friend (who says the only time she ever sees nuns is when she's with me). i told my friend that i think it's good to see some of these nuns with someone else beside me so it's not like snuffleuphagus (i.e. all in my head for those who did not grow up with snuffy being a character that only big bird could see on sesame street. they kept him a b.b. only friend during the early 70's and then made it so everyone could see him b/c research tests or some shit showed that kids were going slightly wonky over the fact that only big bird could see snuffleuphagus who wasn't invisible or imaginary, he would simply walk off just before maria or bob or mr. hooper or someone would come by).

nun drive by

on the way home from taking the stray cat i have adopted to the vet (he bit me when they took his temperature. hey, if someone took my temp that way i'd probably bite too) i saw a nun on 72nd and 1st out the bus window. there is a convent on 72nd street a couple of blocks up from 1st ave. so that feels a little like cheating. i think a true nun sighting is when i'm in a completely random place like central park or on a bus late at night or in midtown.
on another note, today is my 40th birthday. i am in a new decade and this is the decade in which i enter a convent (god willing) so that's pretty cool.
i'd like to go to africa to visit ohp's house in swaziland and i'm trying to decide if i should go over easter vaca (i get a week and a half) or in the summer (when i can take more time).
in the meantime, i am gearing up for lent! i love lent! for me it's the spiritual "5 more minutes" snuggling under the blankets in the cold winter with god and jesus. mmmmm....