Flight to San Francisco
Once my plane began its flight to San Francisco, everyone on board turned to their screens. It was a mid-afternoon flight on a Friday, and the passengers were looking for entertainment. Some turned on the March Madness game between Michigan and Villanova. Others watched the latest film releases, like Eternals or House of Gucci. I pressed my own touchscreen, curious to see how far our plane had traveled across the satellite map.
Nothing happened.
I tried again, tapping all over the screen. I even tried pressing it with and without the headphones plugged into the outlet.
Again, nothing happened.
Everyone else in sight had their screens up and working. I was the only one in my section, and possibly on the whole plane, whose screen wouldn’t turn on.
Screen Sign
If my husband had been there, he would have told the flight attendant or figured out how to fix the screen himself. They would have fixed the screen, or James would have shared his with me. But James wasn’t with me today.
I interpreted my unresponsive screen as a sign. Instead of relaxing and watching shows, the Lord wanted me to get to work.
Time to read through the manuscript.
I slipped my laptop out of my travel bag and cracked open the screen. During the past week, I had copy/pasted dozens of blog posts into a single Word document, tentatively titled “The Convent of the Heart”. It wasn’t everything I had written, just about the first third of the book. It included the “before” of my spiritual journey, from Texas and Charles, all the way to my first outdoor recreation in the convent.
I’d never sat down to read all my posts at once; there wasn’t time. During the past two years, I’d never had more than three uninterrupted hours to work on the book at one time.
Today I had a little over four.
Okay, let’s see how far I can get.
A Bit of Light Reading
I arranged the posts together in a novel format, with a chapter for each of my locations before Entrance Day: Texas, DC, Kentucky, Nashville, Michigan. As I started reading, I was surprised by how well each post flowed from one into the other. The whole beginning read almost seamlessly, with very few edits necessary, just some minor repetition intended for new blog readers. The content seemed just the right length, and the underlying storyline shone through each page. This convent memoir really was about intimacy and relationships, just as my editor Ruth had suggested.
“What are you doing to find God in your life, right now?” she’d also asked me. “The convent doesn’t have a monopoly on God.”
The flight attendant scrolled by with the beverage cart.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“A Coke Zero, please,” I requested, smiling beneath my mask.
“Ice?”
“Yes, please.”
A scoop of ice cubes crackled into my cup, followed by the pop-fizz of a fresh Coke Zero can.
“Thank you so much.” It was a treat to be served by someone.
After taking a long sip, I returned to the manuscript:
I gazed at Jesus, displayed in the monstrance…
I didn’t know what He was saying. He just kept looking and looking, with a gaze so piercing, the memory of it burned in my heart, long after I’d returned home.
The Expansion
The plane’s interior was loud, but not with conversation. I heard the rush of wind against the wings, the hiss of air surging through the passenger’s cabin. A steady, rhythmic roar.
I glanced up from my screen. Most of the passengers had their windows closed, but a few rows ahead I could see a ray of sunlight streaming into the plane. Blue seatbelt lights warned of possible turbulence, while a glowing red marker designated the plane’s Emergency Exits.
The plane. Making a journey. Taking a risk. The wind lifts us up, the oxygen pumps through the cabin to keep us alive. I am both safe, and one step away from disaster.
In the midst of this rush, this forward movement, this safety and this danger, my heart began to ache. To ache and ache, as if it was expanding, cracking open, like an oyster’s shell.
Crrick! went my heart. Crr-rick!
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt it. The ache had started happening, in little bits and pieces, over the past two weeks. Not like when I went to the doctor and found out my rib had moved out of place. This was a different, interior ache. A heartache that was sorrow; a sorrow that was love.
This heartache hurt, but it meant Him. It meant He was coming.
“Are You making Yourself known to me, Jesus?”
I believed Jesus was always with me, and usually that was enough. The spiritual authors said not to seek out good feelings or favors from God. The goal was to fall in love with Him, not His awesome gifts.
Sometimes the Lord came anyway, in what I suppose the spiritual authors call “consolation”. For me, this was a brief experience of the Lord’s presence—a strengthening, encouraging moment of grace. Usually they occurred right before something bad happened, or some sort of trial.
No Consolation?
Although, I thought, this heart-pain is different. It doesn’t feel good—it hurts. A lot.
I found this strangely comforting. It felt safer, to have a painful experience of the Lord rather than a pleasurable one. Also, much more familiar and real.
A few months earlier, I had written:
Knots and barbs and tangles, as far as the eye could see: that was the shape of my interior landscape. Broken, tortured wilderness.
Why wouldn’t the Lord come in a way that my “interior landscape” understood so well?
The steady roar of the cabin pressed about me like a cocoon. So strange, to be held still while the plane itself trembled with forward motion.
And all the while my heart stretching, expanding. Preparing for something new. Growing so the Lord could fill it, this aching emptiness.
So long, Lord. So long I have waited for You. For this convent of the heart.
Should I tell Him to hold back? Should I say I am not ready? Point out my imperfections, remind Him of my flaws?
I shook my head, draped my fingers over my chest. Why? He knew them all.
My weakness attracts Him. My brokenness binds us.
I pressed my lips together in determination. I didn’t tell the Lord to stop. For twenty years I’d felt the wrong kind of pain, the un-righteous kind—the result of mine and other people’s faults—my exterior health matched with interior agitation, anxiety, grief. But then—one day for this pain to be the right kind of pain, the kind that meant the Lord was coming…who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t endure anything to attain it?
“What does your main character want?” Ruth had prompted me.
“Intimacy,” I’d answered. “First with men, and then with God.”
Intimacy, and even more—union. To stay with Him, always.
“Lord, is that what this is?” I couldn’t know for sure, but I hoped it was true. I longed for it to be true. “Is this a union of hearts?”
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Thank you so much for reading! I apologize for the delay – we were on vacation for 4th of July. 🙂 Please join me next week for more, and to hear about my day in San Francisco! 🙂
Also, to read about 4th of July in the convent, please click here:
Fourth of July at the Motherhouse
