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bjbj Thank you all for coming. I'm Debra Schultz, and on behalf of the Elizabeth A. Sackler
Center for Feminist Art, I'd like to welcome you. This is a very unique experience that
we're going to have learning about Mary Johnson's new memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst, Following
Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life. I, personally, devoured
the book when I was lucky enough to get an advance copy. So I know that you will be spellbound
with Mary's presentation this afternoon. The book has already been featured in the September
issue of Poets and Writers and excerpted in the October issue of O Magazine, which portends
well, does it not? Texas born Mary Johnson spent her life from age 17 to 37, 20 years,
as Sister Donata, a nun in Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, until she left the
order in 1997. Now a respected teacher and public speaker, she's been named a fellow
of the MacDowell Colony and is on the board of A Room of Her Own, a foundation for women
artists and writers whose biennial retreat she directed this summer. She currently lives
in New Hampshire. I met Mary two years ago at an AROHO women's writing retreat at Ghost
Ranch, New Mexico. The land around Ghost Ranch, as some of you may know, is exquisite and
was the inspiration for many of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings. That beautiful setting inspired
many of us to have faith that we'd find time and ways to write in the spirit of Virginia
Woolf's declaration that women writers need 500 guineas and a room of their own. At the
retreat where I met Mary, I learned that she was the first recipient of AROHO's Gift of
Freedom, a 50,000 dollar award over two years to complete a writing project. As a former
funder of women's projects, I know that such a generous spirited award was itself a miracle,
and you'll learn more about this wonderful women's writing community today. And even
though Mary told us at the time that she was writing a memoir about working with Mother
Teresa, it was hard to envision that this warm, energetic, funny person was a nun for
20 years, let alone a member of one of the world's most ascetic orders. For me, as a
little Jewish girl in public school in Brooklyn, I found the nuns who came to pick up Catholic
kids for religious instruction every Wednesday utterly mysterious, powerful, and intriguing.
I yearned to know more. Mary Johnson has finally lifted that veil in a uniquely intimate and
authentic way. An Unquenchable Thirst does what the best memoir should. It seduces the
reader along a journey of transformation, challenging us to engage our own questions
about love, spirituality, and vocation. Let me explain today's format. Mary is going to
talk and show images from her experience, and then read from An Unquenchable Thirst.
Then I'll ask her a couple of questions and we'll open it up for your questions, and finally
Mary will be selling and signing books. So we're expecting to go until about four o clock
today. Now it is truly my pleasure and honor to introduce Mary Johnson, the artist formerly
known as Sister Donata. Thank you so much, Debra, and thank you, Rebekah, and thank the
Elizabeth Sackler Foundation. It's such a privilege for me to be here in this place.
Do you know what's in that next room over there? Judy Chicago's Dinner Party. I ve spent
hours there in that room among all of these women from history who are represented there
with their own plates and banners. It's just a really fantastic, very sacred to me, very
special place, and I hope you have a chance to look at that and other things in the Museum.
I don't expect to be here till 4. But I am very happy for this opportunity. And I'd just
like to start, I think, by showing you some photos. It's kind of a way into understanding
my experience, and it's also a way of talking about writing a memoir. Because the photos
that I'm going to show you and the facts that I'm going to tell you about my life are really
like the raw material. And then at a certain point I'm going to read you a piece from my
memoir, and you'll perhaps get a sense of what it might be to take the raw facts of
someone's life and craft them into something which is hopefully meaningful and carries
you along with the story, turning life into art in a certain sense. So that's my book.
It's been out almost two weeks now. Yeah, that's still kind of hard for me believe.
OK. Perhaps you remember this cover from a 2000 issue of Time magazine. My relationship
with this cover is unique because I was on my way from New Hampshire, where I live. I
was in New York. I had just parked the car and I was on my way to meet a prospective
literary agent for my book. I hadn't quite finished writing it but I knew I was almost
there. And on my way to the agency I saw this cover of Time magazine in a newsstand. I looked
at it and it was like this was the expression that Mother Teresa had on her face the last
time that we spoke just a few days before I left. What I see there is confusion and
doubt, and if I had believed in signs, still, that would have been a really big one to see
on my way to meet, as I was about to kind of reveal my secret life. And this was when
the letters that Mother Teresa had written to her spiritual directors were published
10 years after her death, which revealed the doubts, the struggles, the way she expressed
that she had felt tormented in her soul, things that were never made public while she was
alive, things that she kept hidden from us sisters, as well. So that was the place that
I wanted to start today. It's also kind of where my book starts. But then we back up,
and I want to talk about all the things that led up to that last conversation I had with
Mother Teresa in May of 1997. I'm going to go way, way back. I was born in Ann Arbor,
Michigan in 1958, the eldest child of a Catholic family. And as the eldest child of a good
Catholic family, the eldest daughter, I was named Mary. Continuing the good Catholic family
tradition, Kathy came along very quickly afterwards, Cindy and Dorothy, Margaret, Joe, and Heather.
By the time this photo is taken, my family now lives in Texas. I'm 12 years old. My dad
has changed jobs, and there we are. Here I'm a senior in high school, and I'm trying to
decide what to do with my life. I had options. I was a good student. I d edited the school
newspaper. I was a star of the debate team, known for humiliating my opponents. My classmates
had voted me most likely to succeed. And then one day, I was passing in front of the library
on my way to class, and I saw this cover of Time magazine. And the eyes on this cover,
it was like this nun was looking at me and saying, I knew she had something to say to
me. I went into the library and I took the Time magazine off the shelf and I sat down,
and I skipped French class. And I read the thing. It was like the whole world was opening
up for me. I read about how Mother Teresa was taking the poor off the street, how she
was finding babies abandoned in dust bins and caring for them. In that moment, somehow,
I knew that I was meant to follow her in her service to God and to the poor. I experienced
that as a call. That was when I was a senior in high school. Several letters and two semesters
at the University of Texas later, I found myself in the South Bronx. Mother had given
me permission to join the sisters. This is the crucifix that she pinned to my blouse,
making me an aspirant in the Missionaries of Charity, the first stage of formation on
my way to becoming a real nun. This photo was taken in the sisters' refectory in the
South Bronx. I'm the one with the flute. I'd been in the convent for a month at this time,
and if you look really closely at my knees, you will see that calluses are already beginning
to develop. We did an awful lot of praying and we did it on a rough carpet. There were
no pews in the Missionaries of Charity chapel. We just knelt on the carpet there for very
long periods of time. The sisters here, many of them are sitting on the floor because it
was a feast day. People had come from various, we had a Convent of Contemplative Sisters
also in the South Bronx. There wasn't enough room at the table. When I joined the sisters,
there were 12 of us in that first group of aspirants. By the time I finished the six
months of my aspirancy, there were two of us left. And we went as postulants to Rome.
This was really exciting. After six months of postulants, we dressed the way we had before,
we became novices. And as novices, Mother Teresa gave us the white sari, the white habit.
She cut our hair, and we entered an intensive time of preparation. Novitiate lasted two
years. It was a time of prayer, of study, of trying to figure out, did we really want
to take these vows? This is a photo that was taken, this is a close up of me. In addition
to getting the sari and the habit, we got a new name when we became novices. And I am
here Sister Donata, which means freely given, like donation. The person sitting next to
me is my sister Kathy. She came with my parents. They surprised me in St. Peter's Square. They
came there for my first profession, the big day when I would take my vows. It was like
a marriage to Jesus. Here I am in the church professing my vows. It was a big deal. A lot
of people came to these professions. Here, Mother Teresa is tucking a cross at my waist.
The cross was the sign that we were professed sisters now, that we had taken our vows. The
sari with the blue border was the same sort of sign. Here we're back at the convent immediately
after profession. These are all the sisters who took vows together with me. We were given
these garlands of roses, and that, I am told, is where the rose petals on the cover of my
book came from, from the rose garlands that the sisters wore. Though actually, those are
carnation petals on the cover. But that's where the idea of the petals came from, from
this photo. You'll notice also we really did live a very poor life. This was our convent.
It was a small convent on the outskirts of Rome along the Via Appia Nuova. Mother met
our families. This was a priest who was close to our family who was studying in Rome at
the time. At this moment, I think it's time to pause and say, So I took these vows. What
were those vows? What are the vows that a nun takes? Every nun in the Roman Catholic
Church takes three vows, poverty, chastity and obedience. Missionaries of Charity, the
group founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, takes an additional vow. It's a vow to give
whole hearted and free service to the poorest of the poor, and it's that vow that gives
the Missionaries of Charity a particular place in the church. The vow of poverty is something
that we really took very seriously. We lived among the poor, like the poor as much as possible.
We had two sets of clothes, which meant that every time we changed them we had to wash
them. We washed our clothes by hand in buckets and we would put them on the line to dry and
pray that it wouldn't rain. We also did whatever work we could ourselves. Here we're in Rome
and we're painting the room where we had several very severely disabled children. When I was
a novice in Rome, we did a lot of the construction work. We made three bathing rooms when I was
there, and I learned a little bit about plumbing. The sisters before me had actually built the
house. The next vow is chastity. I found this photo on the web and I think it really epitomizes
Mother Teresa's attitude towards human touch. I think that in this photo, she's kind of
saying, Hands off, please. Mother really was not comfortable with human touch. She taught
us that we belonged body, soul, affections entirely, as she used to say, only always
all for Jesus. And we were not allowed to touch each other. You'll notice in those photos
that you've seen until now, even on the days of profession, sisters did not give each other
a hug. We weren't even really supposed to touch anyone unless it was a case of real
necessity. But even further than that, we were not to have close friends in the group
among the sisters. We were to treat everyone exactly the same. We were never to be alone
with one other person in a room unless we were speaking privately with our superior
or our confessor. There were these sorts of rules that eventually became very difficult
for me. But that's getting ahead of the story, but eventually I came to realize I needed
kind of normal human contacts. So our vow of chastity also was supposed to lead us deeply
into the one intimate relationship that was encouraged, and that was the relationship
with God. We spent at least four hours in prayer every day. The eucharistic adoration
was one of the preferred forms of prayer. So that's poverty, chastity, and obedience.
In the Missionaries of Charity, obedience covered really everything in our life. We
would get up at four forty in the morning. We were supposed to be in bed by 10. I often
didn't manage that. I had various responsibilities that kept me up past then. But every moment
between four forty and ten o clock was scheduled. In the book I reproduce this schedule, and
people tend to be shocked when they see it. We actually were given one hour of free time
a week, and very often did not get that. But that structure gave us a context in which
to live out our life. Each time the bell would ring, because every time the activity changed,
the half hour of spiritual reading was over, the bell would ring, and we'd go to wash the
clothes. Twenty minutes later the bell would ring and we'd go to do the housework. That
bell ringing and that schedule was considered the voice of God. We were told that if we
were writing a note to someone we should stop in the middle of a word if that's the moment
that the bell rang. It was that sort of obedience. And it didn't involve just the schedule, but
our superiors chose where we would live, what sort of work we would do, who the sisters
in the community were. We had no say in any of that. That was all predetermined and it
was considered that obedience to those things was obedience to the voice of God. So, poverty,
chastity, obedience, and whole hearted and free service to the poorest of the poor, this
is the work for which Mother Teresa became widely known. This is Kalighat, the home for
the dying in Calcutta. This is another home in Calcutta. This is a place where the sisters
care for people with various mental illnesses. You'll notice that here they're washing the
clothes and the sheets of the people who stayed with us there, again, all by hand. This is
a home for orphans in Romania. The Missionaries of Charity live and work with the poor in
over 130 countries throughout the world. So they're really everywhere. My first assignment
after profession was to go back to the South Bronx. Sometimes we took the kids from summer
day camp on field trips out in the country. At the end of the first year, we would have
to ask permission to renew our vows. The first six years that we took our vows, we took vows
for one year at a time. And we'd write a letter asking Mother Teresa for permission and she
would write us back a little note. And that note would include the virtues that she thought
we needed to give special attention to during that year. So this is the first note of that
kind that I got from Mother, and you can see that I had many virtues that I needed to improve.
My next assignment was in Washington, D.C. This is the soup kitchen that we had there.
We also had programs for the children. This is Thanksgiving Day. We didn't always have
singing during the soup kitchen, but on special occasions. My next assignment was in Winnipeg,
which is very cold. But we had a shelter there for, we knew that there was a need to have
a shelter there for homeless men. Many of them died on the streets every winter because
it was so cold. But even though we did express that, we actually had a shelter for women
and children, though there were several of those in the city. There were these kinds
of things that happened that didn't always quite make a lot of sense. But some of the
neighbors had objected to our idea. They were afraid that these women's husbands would come
violent or whatever. This fellow on the top especially was very concerned about that.
And so we had several meetings with the city council. But after Winnipeg, it was time for
me to go back to Rome and figure out whether or not I was going to take my vows for life.
And it was a question for me, because I had a lot of questions about whether this was
really the life I should live or not. But I spent that year studying Mother Teresa's
writings and falling in love again with the vision that she had of love and service to
the poor, and I did take my final vows. This is the group of sisters on the day of our
final profession. Everyone s very happy. My assignment after profession changed several
times. I think you can probably see that there is a very heavy coat of liquid paper underneath
those words Regina Mundi. My first assignment was to be novice mistress, which really terrified
me. I was supposed to prepare these sisters for first vows. At the time, I was 28, and
many of the sisters who were coming in were older than I was. I entered very young. So
anyway, I was first appointed novice mistress and then I was appointed to go help open a
new house in Cuba, but they wouldn't give an American sister a visa to go to Cuba. And
in the end I went to Regina Mundi, which was a school, pontifical institute, that taught
theology only to sisters. Being sent to study was both a blessing and a curse. I enjoyed
studying but I knew because so few Missionaries of Charity were sent to study that if I were
going to study theology, it meant that I could expect that most of the rest of my life would
be spent working with the formation of the sisters and not directly with the poor, which
was not something I had envisioned, but again something that obedience was calling me to.
This is the school where we studied right in the shadow of St. Peter's. While I was
studying, the Catholic Church issued a new code of canon law, which were directives governing
every aspect of church life. And one of those things that the canon law required was that
sisters rewrite their constitutions. The constitutions were the governing documents of every group.
And Mother Teresa had written those constitutions for the Missionaries of Charity on her knees
eight years before I was born after all the sisters had gone to bed at night. She would
stay up alone writing these things, and they addressed every aspect of our lives. And when
the code of canon law was issued, and there was this requirement that constitutions be
revised, that job fell to me, to do the revision. I was absolutely horrified and terrified.
I agreed to do it under one condition, that my work remain anonymous. I didn't want people
to think that I d anything to do with it, because I didn't want to discredit the document
in any sort of way. I was way too young to be doing that sort of thing, in my opinion.
When I finished my studies, I was appointed novice mistress. This is the first and only
group of novices that I prepared to take their first vows. After that I was assigned to work
with the sisters taking final vows, so I became tertian mistress. Tertian is like the third
year of novitiate, which is why they call it tertianship. When the sisters took vows,
and when they didn't, I led the choir. That was one of the things that I did. When you
read the book, you'll read the story of how I learned to play the organ kind of by miracle.
At professions, also, I was the one who would call the names of the sisters individually
who were going to take vows. I would stand beside Mother as a witness during the professions
and then afterwards I would form part of the bodyguard as we returned to the convent because
thousands of people came to these professions, mostly wanting to see, hear, and touch Mother
Teresa. And by this time, she was quite frail. This photo is from about 1995. I'm the one
with the glasses there on what's your far left. Sister Nirmala is on the other side
of Mother. She was Mother Teresa's successor, became Superior General afterwards. Sister
Elena, the sister kind of between us who's looking the other way is the Regional Superior
for all of Italy. This is a group of sisters that I prepared to take final vows. Profession
day is this really great day. There's this spirit of camaraderie among the sisters. Everyone
there is there together, feeling called to do something with purpose, something with
meaning. And the joy you see on those faces is genuine, it s genuine. During the celebrations,
Mother was also very happy on vow days. It really made her happy. We often met Mother.
Mother met religious and civil dignitaries all the time. I was there the first time that
she and Diana met. During the years in which I was tertian mistress, many things happened.
Mother's health declined and two sisters began to exert a great deal of political influence
on the group and draw the group very much to the right. That was something that didn't
settle well with me. I felt like the group was kind of being taken over by this alternate
vision. At the same time also, I fell in love, twice, once with a sister, once with a priest,
and that complicated things immensely. Yeah. I asked many times to be taken out of this
responsibility of preparing the sisters for vows. I really didn't feel like I was the
person who should be doing that. Eventually, I was appointed superior of a convent on the
outskirts of Rome. And there I had more frustration because I couldn't get permission to do some
of the programs for the poor that I really felt they needed and that we could have done.
During this time of my struggles, Mother Teresa's health failed more and more. This photo was
taken in May of 1997, just a few months before Mother Teresa died. She's shrinking. Every
time we would see her, she would seem shorter. At one point she was quite a few inches taller
than Sister Nirmala, and here she's not at all. If you look, you see her eyes are sunken.
And we're standing in the back and we're really very concerned about Mother. This particular
photo was taken in the Vatican. We had a community of sisters who worked with homeless women
within the walls of the Vatican. If you're facing St. Peter's Square, it's just right
off to the left. This picture was taken about two days before the section that I want to
read to you now from my memoir. And this section is my last conversation with Mother Teresa.
I've been out and came back late for lunch. I've received permission at this point, just
that month, actually. Mother Teresa had stopped being Superior General. There was an election
and Sister Nirmala was elected to succeed her, and I'd asked permission not to speak
to Mother when she came to Rome. Because as Superior of one of the houses there, one of
my duties would have been to speak with Mother, and Sister Nirmala said, no, that I didn't
have to because I'd already asked permission to leave. I had received a letter from Mother
giving me that permission, but giving it to me to leave five months after I had first
requested it. So I'm still there waiting for this time to expire so that I can actually
go. By this point I've started carrying this letter around with me because sisters found
out, and they were trying very hard to convince me not to go. And the only way I could get
them to stop trying to convince me was to show them this letter that Mother had signed
already, saying that eventually, when a certain amount of time had passed, I could go. And
so, I have been trying very hard during this visit to avoid Mother Teresa. I'm eating lunch
alone in the refectory because I came back late, and someone has reminded Mother that
I'm going. And that someone, her name will be mentioned later on, is Sister Joseph Michael,
someone with whom I had worked very closely. Reading. Back in Casalina, we'd missed lunch,
and everyone was at afternoon siesta. Sister Joseph Michael wandered off somewhere and
I foraged some pasta. I was swallowing quickly, hoping to make it to bed for at least a few
minutes before the bell rang, when the refectory door squeaked open. Mother stood firm, all
five feet of her looking straight at me. Then she grabbed the door jamb for support. Indignation
massed in her eyes. I nearly choked. Mother raised her hands, palm imploring. What is
this Mother hears about you? I put down my fork and tried to swallow. I spotted Sister
Joseph Michael slinking down the hall. What was I going to say? God, where are you? Come
to Mother now, she said, and led me toward her room. I grabbed my bag from the bench
beside me and followed Mother, making sure to close the door behind us. Mother walked
to her desk but did not sit. She put her hands on the desk and leaned into them to steady
herself. Despite what I'd heard about Mother not always getting enough oxygen to her brain,
she seemed fully alert, completely aware. She looked right through me. Sister, tell
Mother what's going on. I swallowed. Mother, I'm going home. Why, sister? Mother lifted
one wrinkled hand in an expression of incomprehension. What's wrong? Mother, I, I just need to go.
I began praying for an interruption, a knock on the door, a phone call from the Pope, an
earthquake, anything. Mother fixed her eyes on mine, and I sensed her trying to understand.
Part of me wanted so much to explain. Tell Mother why. Her voice was softer now, pleading
more that insisting. Has someone been unkind to you? There had been other sisters who,
when they left, had told Mother they couldn't bear the unkindness they'd felt in community.
I knew that's what they'd said because Mother had written several general letters over the
years in which she told us that we d driven the sisters out. She had begged us to love
one another. The sisters in Tor Bella Monaca loved me and I loved them. We had our spats,
but nothing to complain to Mother about. No, Mother, no one's been unkind. I searched for
something to help her understand, but I knew that nothing I might say would satisfy Mother.
For Mother there never was nor could there ever be a sufficient reason to leave a God
given vocation, and none of the particulars I might point to were really why I was leaving
anyway. It was far bigger than any one thing. Mother, God is asking something else of me
now. That sounded safe. How could Mother argue with God's will? You mean you want to join
another community? The Carmelites or Poor Clares? Joining a cloistered community would
have made some sense to Mother. I would still be married to Jesus, just realizing a different
calling. No, Mother, I don't want to join another community. She shook her finger at
me, pain and confusion in her face. I was hurting her. She had trusted me. She had plans
for me. She thought she knew me. She'd promised to give saints to mother church and I was
disappointing her in the worst way possible. Don't you know that you belong to Jesus? Mother
said, playing what she must have considered a trump card. I had no right to make such
a decision. I was Sister Donata, the freely given one. Jesus owned me. I wiped my sweaty
palms on my sari. Yes, Mother, I belong to Jesus as any Christian does. I might have
asked Mother to sit down, her eyes searching the plaster walls for an answer. I'm sorry.
I might have asked Mother to sit down, to calm down, so that we could have a heart to
heart. I didn't. Mother's black and white convictions, the power her words held over
my psyche, and the simple fact that I loved her so much would best me in any discussion.
My only way out was to refuse to engage. Mother began to look around the room, her eyes searching
the plaster walls for an answer. Finally she looked at the desk, then up at me, and said,
Mother could believe this about anyone, but she cannot believe it about you. These were
hard words, and I couldn't be sure what they meant. I'd wanted to believe that Mother knew
who I was, knew that I had wanted to be a good Missionary of Charity more than I had
ever wanted anything. Others had told me Mother knew me. Certainly the jobs she'd assigned
me spoke of her trust in me. On the other hand, I'd never heard Mother even call my
name. I was 39 years old. I'd known and followed Mother for 20 years, and for each of those
years I'd longed to hear Mother call me, Sister Donata. I'd often seen her look my way when
some sister pointed me out as the one who composed the hymn sung at profession, or the
one who was in charge of the sister's formation, the one who worked so hard to get approval
from the city council for the women's shelter, the one who taught such good classes to the
sisters. But Mother had uttered my name when she gave it to me as a novice and never again
in 20 years, even when we travelled together, even during the three day trip to Sweden where
I was the only sister with Mother. She never once called me Sister Donata. I was just,
sister. I could imagine Mother saying, Mother can't believe this about you, to any sister
in an attempt to keep her in the community. Did she remember how she'd scolded me the
day I'd walked barefoot across the grass in Washington? How she told me to let Jesus use
me without consulting me? Did she remember my letter confessing my relationship with
Niobe? Did she remember how I'd pleaded with her not to admit Niobe to final vows and how
she'd admitted her anyway? Did Mother know how much I loved the sisters? How much I loved
the poor? How much I loved her? Did she know that through it all my love for God had never
waned? Did she know how much I hated to disappoint her? Sister, listen to Mother, talk to Mother.
She was beating the desk with the flat of her hand, every beat emphasizing every word.
Why do you want to go? It all flashed through my head, the suffocation, the disillusionment,
the frustration, the thirst for more. Mother, I wanted to say. Mother, my God isn't like
yours. Your God asks you to deny yourself. He counts every sacrifice and will reward
each act of self denial. Your God is Jesus crucified. My God is the God of the Resurrection,
the God who says, Enough of this suffering. Let's heal the world. Your God is a jealous
God, one who says, So long as you never get too close to any human being, I will be close
to you. You may not feel my closeness on Earth, but I will be close in Heaven. My God says,
I offer you friends. I offer you lovers. I am present in the people I give you now, people
in whom I hope you will delight as I do. Your God says, I bind you to this life forever.
You are my spouse. Marriage is an unbreakable covenant. My God says, I invite you to walk
with me. I'm not sure where we'll end up, but we'll walk together, and others will join
us on the way. Mother, I'd like you to understand, but I can't take the chance that you won't.
I don't want your God anymore. My God says, I came that you may have life and have it
to the full. I'm following my God out the door, Mother, and you can't stop me. I said
none of this, of course. What I said was, Mother, I'm going home. I reached inside my
bag. Mother has already given me permission. I pulled out the letter. Mother took it from
my hand. Mother's expression of surprise as she read the letter confirmed my suspicion
that this had been just one in a pile of hundreds of papers Mother signed every day. Mother
had never read it, or if she had read it, she hadn't recognized my name. Or perhaps
she'd read it and then given her frail physical state, forgotten that one of the sisters she
trusted most had decided to turn her back on Jesus. Mother, I said, taking a deep breath,
if Jesus wants me to, I will come back. Even as I said this, I knew I would never return.
Of course Jesus wants you. Don't go. I saw the determination and frustration in her eyes
as she looked at me. Then Mother closed her eyes for a moment. Perhaps she was praying.
Perhaps she realized I was not going to give her anything with which she could engage.
Or perhaps she just wasn't able to take any more of the conversation. Mother will speak
with you later, she said. As I knelt for Mother's blessing, I felt her hands press my veiled
head, both blessing me and pushing me out. Thank you very much. I have a tiny bit more
with the slides, because that's not quite the end of the story, but we are definitely
almost there. Even after I left the convent, the sisters gave me a plane ticket and 500
dollars to start my new life after 20 years. But even after I left I still loved the sisters
very much. I considered them my family. A few months after I left, Mother Teresa died.
It was very hard for me to mourn her passing alone. I tried several times to call the sisters
in Rome, and I just couldn't get through. I'd gone to live with my sister in Houston.
I attended a memorial service for Mother in Houston's cathedral. The bishop there during
the homily went on and on about this privilege he'd had to meet Mother Teresa on a layover
at George Bush Airport. And I knelt in the back of the church and just cried. No one
in the church knew who I was. It was hard. After a few months, I tried together with
two other ex Missionaries of Charity to form a community kind of according to Mother's
vision. It was something that I had envisioned as a place where people of all different sorts
of religions, different ways of life, men, women, young people, old people, would gather
in a different sort of community. But it really didn't work. And after a few months, I realized
my heart really wasn't in it. I went back to school. I got a Bachelor's degree in English.
Eventually, I got a Master's degree in creative writing, and now I have a book. It took me
a while to find my way through the world after I left the convent. Everything was different.
My whole relationship with this thing I'd called God for so long changed in very painful
ways in the beginning. It was a complicated process. Now I believe in living life fully.
I think I've always kind of believed that. I believe in contact with the reality of the
present moment more than living for an afterlife. I enjoy at the moment living life without
a story of God superimposed on everything. I live in this kind of intimate connection.
The other thing I believe in, and Debra touched on this in the introduction, is the importance
of telling our stories. When I was in the beginning stages of telling my story, I met
a woman who volunteered to help me, Darlene Chandler Bassett, whom Debra mentioned. That
was the beginning of A Room of Her Own Foundation, and the Gift of Freedom, because I really
think it's important that people begin to talk, all of us, from our own experiences.
And this is a picture of the place. This is the last slide that Debra mentioned. This
is Ghost Ranch at the retreat a couple of years ago. I'm there with the papers in my
hand. The wonderful woman in the yellow T shirt and sneakers next to me is Sister Helen
Prejean, who wrote Dead Man Walking. She was there with us on that retreat. And Darlene
is the woman next to her. Immediately above me is Debra. That's me, in need of a haircut.
Debra with longer hair, that's right. A couple of people over, there's Robbie Harold, who's
also here today. And there are several other women here who have been connected with A
Room of Her Own Foundation in various ways. It's really something that's very important
to me, this helping people tell their stories. I really think that's vital. So much so that
during this time of promoting my book, I've promised AROHO three dollars for every book
I sell at an event. I encourage you, and any way you d like to help out, there's also a
little pamphlet there with some information. But now I think is the time. I'm going to
sit down. Debra is going to ask me questions and then you get to ask questions, and we'll
just have a little discussion. A great privilege to ask these questions. Mary, one of the most
moving things in the book is about your evolving understanding of love. And you gave a very
eloquent explanation of it at the end of your talk. But can you tell us a little bit more
about how that evolved and maybe some of the specific relationships that helped you expand
your understanding? Yes, we get to the sex right away. Don't have to worry when it's
going to appear. Can you all hear me? It sounds like to me that. OK, that's great. Yeah, so
I was in the Missionaries of Charity for about 12, 13 years, being sometimes very, very lonely,
even though I was surrounded by the sisters, because of those rules that I talked about
in the beginning that forbade us to have real friendships with people. And at a certain
point there was a sister who approached me and after we had been together in the community
for a couple of weeks, I was hanging my clothes, and she appears there and she whispers in
my ear and she says, Sister Donata, I love you. No one had ever said these words to me
before. I was really kind of completely swept off my feet and I developed a relationship
with her, which eventually led to me breaking my vows of chastity. It was an exceedingly
complicated relationship. I'm not going to go into details now because otherwise why
read the book? It's worth it. But it became a very, very complicated relationship, but
it was something that began to open me to the marvels that could be there when you could
be yourself in front of someone else. And eventually, I developed a very different sort
of relationship with a priest who was my confessor. We were friends for many years before that
developed, any sort of physical component, and physical components were small. They are
in the book. But it was much more, I suppose, something of the heart and it was a relationship
that really helped me value myself again. Because I think as the Missionaries of Charity,
with the emphasis on humility, with the emphasis on obedience, with the emphasis on really
just self denial all the time, it led you to have an idea of yourself. We were taught
to tell ourselves that we are nothing. Those were the words. We were to repeat that sort
of prayer, I am nothing, God is all. That kind of thing. And that anything that we did
that was not good came from us, and any good that we did came from God living in us. That
was the attitude. But these relationships that I had started to teach me that maybe
there was something good in me, and that definitely opened things up, those kinds of loving relationships,
and the experience of getting close to other people. Thank you. As you describe your process
of growing in the order and hearing both critical comments about your characteristics that your
need for greater obedience and yet being asked to take on increasing levels of responsibility
as a very young woman, how did you understand that in your own mind as that was happening
to you? And what did you think about leadership? Did you think about leadership at all? I thought
about leadership a lot, a lot. Also because when I was in the process of rewriting the
constitutions, it was kind of an opportunity to rethink things. And I could see that the
Vatican Council and the new code of canon law, even but to a lesser degree, were calling
for a rethinking of things. The mandate in rewriting the constitutions was that I would
actually change nothing that was not required to be changed by the code of canon law. But
I did have the opportunity to write a kind of addendum. When this document was sent for
approval, the sisters had to vote on it. I attached an appendix to it with my suggestions,
which was a very exciting thing for me to have the opportunity to do. Because I really
felt like we needed more democracy, that so many sisters had great ideas. And everything
was kind of being squelched, and sisters were very rarely given the opportunity to make
a real creative contribution. And that just always seemed like a real pity. Also the sense
that while I was given a great deal of responsibility, I was there preparing the sisters to take
their vows, which was really a big deal. So I had all this responsibility and I was told
kind of like if they didn't turn out all right, that was my fault. So that level of responsibility.
But I was given no authority in the sense that I had to do it exactly the way I was
told to do it. There were certain subjects I was supposed to cover, etcetera. And I managed
to you know find ways to do things differently anyway. But the sense of being held greatly
responsible but without the authority to do things in the way that you thought they needed
to be done, that just created this incredibly difficult situation for me. I have to say,
although the parts about sex were very compelling, actually your intellectual journey and your
struggle to assert yourself as a critical thinker when you were rewriting the constitutions
I found incredibly compelling. And I'd like to ask a little bit more about that conflict
between obedience and critical thinking and how you think of yourself now as a critical
thinker in relation to you as a memoir writer? Critical thinker and a memoir writer. Yeah.
The memoir writing piece of it, I made a decision very early on that I wanted a narrative voice
that kept very close to the actual events I was experiencing. There are many different
ways to write a memoir. A lot of times, and very wonderfully so, people will adapt a double
voice, where I look back on the things that happened to me and I tell you not only what
happened to me but what I think now about what happened to me then. And that gives you
an opportunity to think more critically about it, whatever. I did a lot of critical thinking
in that way, but I decided when I was going to write the book that that's not the kind
of book I wanted. The kind of book I wanted was one where readers would read it and become
immersed in the story, that they would just be present with me in that moment as I was
experiencing those things. I wanted readers to know what it felt like to be there. So
I didn't put on that extra layer of critical thinking. These kinds of opportunities give
me the chance to say things like that. And the next book I'm working on gives me a chance
to kind of reflect on some of the experiences that I had, but this one, or even the words
I was choosing. I wanted the words to be so simple that nobody would get caught in the
words. They d just get taken up in the story. That was how I approached that. And I think
that people who have read it have afterwards thought critically about it themselves, which
was also one of my goals, to get people to look at these things and make their own critical
decisions. Because I think it's really important that we all think for ourselves, the way that
I really was not encouraged to do for 20 years. I think that made me value that ability even
more. Well, that leads to a, for me and probably everybody else, obvious question about how
you prepared yourself for people who might be angry that you lifted this veil? Yeah.
One thing that I noticed is that some people tend to be very invested in the image of Mother
Teresa, especially Catholics. She was kind of held up as like the example, like this
is the good things in the Catholic Church. Maybe right now there are all sorts of other
things that are coming to light, but at least we have this. I write about in the book a
time when Mother was asked to open a house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which wasn't far
from where I grew up in Beaumont, Texas, we re just on the border with Louisiana there.
And I was surprised, at that time we didn't have a lot of houses in the United States,
and I could think of many places that were poorer somehow than Baton Rouge. And it was
like, Why exactly are we going to Baton Rouge? And it was because that was the first place
that the *** scandals in the Catholic Church became public, and the bishop wanted
Mother Teresa and the sisters there to repair the reputation of the church. So any sense
of giving Mother Teresa three dimensions is not appreciated by people who are invested
in presenting her in one or two dimensions. I present a more human Mother Teresa, somebody
who got frustrated, who got tired, who did not always have a smile on her face the way
that you often hear her described. And I knew people would not always be happy about that.
But what I told myself was that people who are ready to hear the story that I have to
tell, just me speaking openly and honestly about my own experiences, they'll be ready
for it. And people who aren't ready for that, you know, they're not going to be ready for
it. It won't affect the way they look on Mother Teresa. Because that was one of my big concerns,
was that people who had been inspired to do good things by Mother Teresa's example. I
didn't want that part of it to go away, because she has been inspirational for so many people.
She still continues to be inspirational for me in many senses. I still retain a great
deal of affection for her. But people who aren't ready to see her in more three dimensions,
they will attack me. And there's a little bit of that going on, but not much, because
I think so far what seems to be happening is that people appreciate the honesty of the
book. And those who aren't ready just, they attack me. But that was also part of my training
as a sister, I think. We were always taught to accept any sort of reprimand in the spirit
of Jesus who stood silent before Pilate, which those of you who read the book laugh a little
bit when you hear that because the first time I heard that it was like I was about to raise
my hand, But Jesus, he talked to Pilate. They had this big conversation about truth. What
is truth? And Jesus was silent before Herod. But the whole point of the instruction was
that those things weren't important. The facts weren't important. What was important was
our attitude of humility in accepting those things and that we should accept any sort
of reprimand in silence. So I have 20 years of practice with that, of realizing that it
doesn't really matter what other people are saying about me. What matters is that I'm
living my life out of my core values. I think you also present this as more than a book,
but an opportunity for dialog. And I thought you might want to say a little bit about your
blog and some of those conversations. Oh, thank you. It's not exactly a blog. There's
a part of my website, which is maryjohnson.co. Not com, but just dot co. It's called Mary's
Salon at the end. And I have various topics and just kind of invite people to discuss
things like, Where do you find your purpose? Another topic is about religion and sexuality.
I forget what all the topics are. It's kind of like opening little rooms for these sorts
of discussions. And I'd be really happy if you visit those. There's also a place on the
website where you can send in a reader's response to the book, which is a different one. And
Debra's done that. And Rita's done that. And just different ways, because that really is
something, I want the book to be a place for people to dialog because I think so often
people get stuck in talking about theories of things, especially readers who talk about
spirituality, or talk about religion, or your life. And it's really hard sometimes to speak
from your own experience. But I think that things aren't going to change until we learn
how to do that, because that's where we're experiencing. We have to tell our stories.
Well, rather than hog all of the opportunity for dialog and questions, why don't I open
it up to the audience and then I can come back. Questions? Comments? Yes. So Mary, when
was the first glimmer of what happened? When was the? Yes. Was there. I didn't hear what
he. Sorry. What was the first glimmer or notion that you wanted out, and any distinct reflections
as to what was happening in your life at that time? The first glimmer of when I wanted out?
You know, there were moments from the first day, when I wanted out. There were things
that were hard in various sorts of ways all along. I remember at one point during those
first six months just really praying that the sisters would find some reason to send
me home because that would be a sign that God wanted me out if the sisters sent me.
Because I was there because I thought God wanted me there and then how could I leave,
you know? So at various points I would feel things. What happened towards the end was
that I began to feel very suffocated. I just had this experience. It wasn't like there
were a whole lot of new things happening, or a big thing that took me over the brink.
But I just kind of felt like I couldn't breathe any more. I felt suffocated. And what I did
is I told myself and I made this promise to God that I would live during that year as
a real Missionary of Charity. I'd keep all the rules. I'd do whatever I was told, because
by that time I'd been breaking quite a few of them. I'd just give myself the chance again
to do everything right the way I was supposed to be doing it, and if at the end of that
year I felt like I was myself in this group, that I was making a creative contribution,
that I felt fully alive again in this group, I would stay. And if at the end of that year
I didn't, then I would go. And at the end of the year, it just became very clear to
me that I needed to go. I ll ask you a follow up. Out of the 20 years, how many years would
you say you were content being there? I was content probably for, content most of the
time, probably about 12 or 13 of those years. I was happy while I was in Washington working
with the poor. I was happy in the South Bronx. I would have these various things that would
happen that would annoy me. I mean, everybody's life has its ups and its downs. But basic
contentment, for quite a while, actually, until it really kind of became way too much.
And I think again, it was that sense of purpose. I knew I was there doing something important
somehow, and helping people's lives, and that was something that was very rewarding. Thank
you. Yeah. Actually, yeah. If you want, yes. What I have a comment that perhaps will direct
a comment from you. But, of course, I've read the book, as did Debra, and was gripped from
the first. Of course the very explicit things that are contained in the book are very interesting.
But one of the things as a young woman who went to Catholic high school or went to school,
like you, up until the end of high school that I appreciated and enjoyed was your working
out your vocation. Because I think the idea of vocation, vocation, is often misunderstood.
So the idea that naive young people are coerced, and it sort of denies the fact that some people
are making a very deeply felt life choice. Sometimes we have a tendency to laugh and
snicker at women's religious vocation, and nuns as well, you know, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Yeah, yeah, she became a nun because she really couldn't do XYZ. A whole pack of
frigid women, and yet I think that one of the things that your memoir does for us, is
very clearly explain to us how a young woman understands her vocation, embraces it, questions
it, and finally has to make some life changes, but it was beautiful to go through the stages
of the vocation. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And that there were so many wonderful sisters
in the group, it comes out, you know, there were conflicts and always the question is,
why did I leave? But it was very hard to leave many very beautiful, very wonderful, very,
just terrific people in that group, yeah. Yes. I wanted to say a couple things. One
is that I love the book, and I shared it with a friend who read it and also loved the book.
I wondered what your gods were now. If you were to address the question what your gods
are now, what would you say? Who are my gods now? Is that the question? Who, what, how?
Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe for me it's more of a how. How do I relate to the fact that
I am just one small part of this big world? Yeah, for me, I find my place here. There
are a lot of things going on that I don't understand, and I don't need to understand
them in order to live well. I think one thing that's become very important to me is to acknowledge
the fact that I don't know a lot, you know? And I don't need to have a purpose imposed
on my life from outside or to imagine that there is some supreme being somewhere who
has a special purpose for my life, but to know that I create purpose in my life by the
choices that I make. So I think it's the way I relate to the world in every moment, and
the people who are in it, and myself. This is where I find the meaning, not in some sort
of external transcendent reality that I think somehow we kind of superimpose that, because
it's a good story. It's a really good story, but it's one that doesn't work for me anymore,
that God story. Yeah. Yes. I was just curious. Who took most of the photos and how were they
kept? It seems like such an everyday sentimental thing to have a photo album, and it's just
so curious to picture women in the community having that. Yes. We were not allowed to keep,
we could keep one photo. We could keep the photo of the day that we took our religious
vows, and we could keep one other photo of our family. People gave us photos all the
time and then we would send them home in our monthly letter to our parents. We could write
a letter once a month to our parents. And it was this wonderful thing that when I got
home and then I was starting to write this book, and my parents moved. And I helped them
pack and I discovered 20 years of letters. They were in a filing cabinet. They were in
shoeboxes in the back of the closet. They were in some of most odd places. But I got
back all but three or four letters from 20 years, and they had kept all these photos.
My parents came to visit me a few times. A lot of the photos were taken by my father.
The photos during profession, we had people who lived in Rome who enjoy taking the photos
for the sisters because they knew it was the one thing the sisters are going to keep. They
were really happy to do that, and they would take photos from those days. The one photo
that I really don't have any idea where it came from, I know I found it in those letters
I sent home to my parents. But it's the photo in the beginning where I'm playing the flute
and woman's playing the guitar in the refectory, because we didn't have cameras. I don't know
who took that picture. I don't know who gave it to me because nobody from outside would
have been in that room, and that's the one photo, I'm very curious about it and I suppose
I'll never know. But they're from all sorts of different places. And you're right, we
did not keep those photos. Yeah. Yes. Do you see religious orders by their very nature
as a stifling of authenticity, and how would you, reflecting on your experience, how might
you re imagine a religious community that might maintain equilibrium with that? I'm
very grateful for this question, because definitely there are many religious orders in the Catholic
Church which do not stifle individuality. This one did. But most especially within the
United States, especially American nuns, the vast majority of them welcome an individual's
contribution, and they educate their sisters, and they are far more democratic than the
organization that we have. So I don't need to imagine it. I could introduce you to several
groups that are working this thing out and have worked it out for decades. And none of
those groups are perfect, but they're doing a good job at that part of it. The thing that
happens, though, is that those are the groups that they changed after the Second Vatican
Council. They heard the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to renew and to become more
open to democratic decisions in various ways. And they gave up their habits and they entered
into a form of life that was more one with the people that they serve. They broke down
a lot of the divisions so that people could share their community life in various ways.
There wasn't this big wall of separation. And I think that those sisters are doing wonderful
work and that they're also giving a very unique form of witness because they retain this connection
with their own sisters and community. They retain their vows of chastity. They understand
obedience in a different way, a healthier way. But the problem is I think that it requires
more maturity to be attracted and to understand the value of that way of life than a young
girl looking to join a religious community has. So most of the vocations nowadays are
going to orders which still have habits, which still have a whole lot of rules, which still
have the big separation, there's us in the community and then the people outside. A lot
of the vocations are going there, because to a teenager, that's a countercultural thing.
There's this attraction there. I'm going to be doing something different, something really
remarkable. And they don't realize in their idealism. I identify with this very much.
You're there to give everything and it's wonderful but you don't realize you're really going
to give everything, even the parts of you that make up what is most precious and form
the most precious gifts you have to offer. The opportunity to use those will even be
taken from you often. And so there is that difficulty, that to understand the attraction
of the sisters who are living this life, it's kind of like, Oh, why should I join them?
I can do that the way I am now. I don't need to take vows to do that. And to understand
what they're doing requires a bit of maturity, I think. I think what they're doing is wonderful
but no one's joining them, those groups, and they're dying out. I'm actually going to take
a minute to say that I'm glad that you mentioned the idea of it being a countercultural move,
because I'm thinking, historically, you and I are about the same age and we've talked
about this, that we're post 60s generation and we're pre third wave or anything else
of feminism. So I'm wondering if you felt like if you had lived in a slightly earlier
era or do you think there s a similarity between this vocation and this calling and something
that you might have felt then or even now in terms of AROHO and women's issues that
would be more aligned with the social movements? Yeah. And you probably have more background
on all of these things than I do and could give a better answer. But I think yes, like
the connection with AROHO. I see myself looking for this community of women, looking for a
way to work together with women. It was very odd because the first time that I met Darlene,
who was the founder of AROHO, some of you have heard this story before, but I found
myself at Ghost Ranch. I was in this group called Circle of Women. I did not want to
be there. I introduced myself to the group. You have to go around and say, I am so and
so from such and such and I'm here because, so I'm Mary Johnson. I'm from Beaumont, Texas.
I m here because pottery was full and hiking was full. This is my fifth choice. I really
don't want to be in this group. And I think you should know that at this point in my life
I don't trust women very much. And why not be honest with these people? I have to spend
a week with them, you know? And during that week, things started to change for me again.
I started to experience, again, that sense of sisterhood. You saw, I grew up, I have
five sisters, natural sisters, and a brother. I lived this life surrounded by women. Now,
again, I can say that I trust women again. It's a good thing and that a community of
women working together is really a very, very wonderful thing. And yes, if I had been born
10 years earlier, I might have joined a commune somewhere. I don't know. One of my earliest
memories is my father taking us for a peace march against the Vietnam War. At that time
we still lived in Ann Arbor. I think I was probably about six and we had these candles.
It was like, yeah, they gotta stop killing people over there. And I'm going to stand
here with my candle until somebody pays attention. And those sorts of things were always important
to me. There was another question I think? Did I miss a question? Yeah. Throughout the
book, you go through so many intellectual and spiritual transformations. That's one
of the most interesting things I found about the book. What advice would you give to the
audience and people that are going through these types of transformations themselves?
Yeah, let it happen. I think it can be very hard. It can be really, really difficult,
because being changed is not easy. There are reasons. You think of the clay to the pot,
OK, being formed there. And this part's crooked and they smash it down and start again. Or
the whole image of the smelting thing. You're there in the fire. Change can feel like that
sometimes, and it can be really, really hard. But it's worth it because you want to grow,
you know? There's the seed and there's the plant and then there's the flower. And then
it becomes the seed again, then the plant, then the flower. You have to go through the
whole thing. If you stop that cycle and say, OK. So I've reached this point and I'm not
going to change any more and you know, ssss. Where's the life there? And you're not going
to grow and reach some new realizations that you'll have? I guess that would be the thing
that I tell to myself a lot. When it gets hard and these changes are happening, just
kind of let it go. Go with the flow. I hate that, go with the flow. But anyway it works.
But one of my favorite images for God, and it's really weird that I dumped my water at
this point, because in the book, one of my favorite images for God is God as a river.
God is a river that s flowing through, you know, the river of life with the trees on
each side and the water everywhere. And it's kind of like floating in God somehow. Now
I would use different words. I'd probably have a floating life or love or something
like that. But yeah, just let the change happen. Go with the flow. Knock the water over, whatever
it is. That seems like a perfect segue. But before we segue, did you want to make an announcement
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