Who did I think I was?
Classes were wonderful. Invigorating. Mind bending -- in the best sense of that word. Often, I was paired up with Sister Barbara, a nun from Cincinnati who had spent her adult life ministering in Guatemala.She was back in the US on a 6-month sabbatical, and came to Loyola to take classes. Again I felt those nagging questions. Who was I, to aspire to learning the craft of spiritual direction in the company of one such as this?
We became friends. Before class and during class breaks, we'd sit and talk and she'd idly sketch. She sketched the most clear and pristine drawings of the most ordinary objects: the blackboard erasers, someone's notebook, the chipped window sill in that ancient classroom. I marveled at our friendship. Where had her experiences as a celibate Roman Catholic nun living in Central America intersected with mine, an Episcopal suburbanite? She was so pure, so holy, so grace-filled, and here I was: a flappable, distracted American mom picking finger-paint out from under my fingernails during class.
One image (spiritual direction classes pay very close attention to imagery!) that rested upon my shoulders that semester was an image of myself as a chipped and cracked clay pot holding a bunch of dark gooey stuff inside. One night, after I had shared the image with my classmates in a reflection, we were on a break, and Barb was sketching, and I asked her to sketch my clay pot as I had described it to the class that evening. She asked me more about my clay pot image. What shape was it? How big was it? And, soon, class resumed.
Two weeks later, I came rushing into class, flapped, late, and muttering about the traffic. Barb smiled and set a wrapped package on my desk.It was perfect.
Too perfect.
"For you," she said.
"But where are the cracks and the chips and the brown, gooey ooze of my sins?" I protested.
"This is how God sees you," she replied.
That picture still hangs in my office, a testament to peace and grace, and quiet calm.
Thank you Sister Barbara, wherever you are.
