February 4, 2022

Rose-colored sunlight brightened the interior of our master bedroom, where I had locked myself away from my husband and little ones. I had only two hours to speak with my editor about my latest manuscript, and I needed a hiding place where I was guaranteed not to be disturbed.

My editor Ruth called at 5 p.m.*

“Hi Mary, thank you for meeting with me. Shall we begin?”

My editor worked the old-fashioned way, taking notes on printed sheets of paper and discussing my pages over the phone. She listened as I read through my tentative book title and chapter names.

“I divided the book into three parts: before, during, and after the convent,” I explained. “Each section begins with a different poem, to set the tone for the chapters.”

“So if you imagine the sections as three tables, the poems are the tablecloths…” Ruth said. She showed me how to layout the title, sections, and chapters, so that they would look clean and beautiful on the page. My manuscript pages were soon covered with notes.

The front door slammed, and the noisy din from downstairs abruptly ceased.

James must have taken the kids out. My shoulders sagged with relief. I loved my family, but tonight I needed to focus on another one of my children: my convent memoir.

What Does She Want?

After we had read through and edited the table of contents, Ruth asked me a question.

“In this book, what does your main character want?”

I paused for a long moment, thinking about where the story began, with me seeking a relationship with Charles, then dating Aidan, and later entering the convent to become a Bride of Christ.

“She wants intimacy,” I said with certainty. “First, with men, and then, with God.”

“She doesn’t have to get it in the story,” my editor said. “But it’s important to know what your character wants. It’s what moves the story forward…”

Downstairs, the front door reopened, followed by the stomping of big and little feet. When my daughter started fussing, I scooped up my papers and headed into the bathroom, where it was a little more quiet.

It’s okay, Mary. She’s just hungry. James will help her.

I took a deep breath and focused on Ruth’s words.

“Monastery in My Heart Poem,” Ruth read out loud.

“This isn’t how the story begins,” I said. “But it’s the first thing I ever posted on my friend’s blog. The poem that started it all. It seemed important to share it with you, so that you’d understand what the story is about.”

“Can you read it to me?” she asked politely.

“Once outside the convent, you still long to be inside it…”

I read each of the stanzas aloud, almost by memory. How I spent “19 months in His garden”, before the Lord sent me home. How 6 weeks later, I met my future husband James. Then the life we built together, and my continued feeling of “pretending to fit in”.

‘…I tasted heaven once, and my heart is ruined for anything else.” I paused, waiting for her response.

“Hmm…don’t end the book here,” she said. “You can’t end the book on this tension, this contradiction.”

I blinked in confusion and surprise. I knew the ending wasn’t exactly a happy one, but it felt true to me, in my heart.

“In the middle of this poem, you describe the beautiful relationship you have with your husband, the best kind of marriage you can have. You two are best friends! But then you say, ‘your heart is ruined’. That can’t be exactly true.”

It can’t?

I hurriedly recorded her words, my brain trying to absorb this new perspective on the poem. Ruth and I were talking about my convent memoir, yes. But we were also talking about my life, right now. Today.

Eight years out of the convent, I still hungered for deeper intimacy with the Lord, which I first and most deeply began to experience with the Sisters. Years had passed, but what I wanted was exactly the same: the greatest possible intimacy with God.

No Monopoly on God

“This poem needs a Part 3,” my editor declared. “The rest of the poem is when you ask for help: ‘Lord, build this convent in my heart!'”

I couldn’t see her, but I imagined Ruth shaking her head.

“The story’s ending is not about writing your book.” She meant Avalon Lost, the YA fantasy novel she’d edited for me last spring. “It’s about your female character believing that God will build a convent in her heart, her marriage, her family.

“You say the Lord sent you home to go out and tell people about Him, about how He’s healed you. But God isn’t a trickster.” Her words were emphatic, passionate. She’d never spoken like this when we were discussing Avalon Lost.

“Of course not.”

“So…what is God doing with you now, that is intimate?”

My feet landed soundly on the bathroom floor. I blocked out my rumbling stomach, the happy/unhappy noises from the kitchen.

What is God doing now, that is intimate?

I reflected on the past two years: giving birth to our beautiful daughter during the first month of the pandemic, the hospital masked and eerily silent. I remembered the virtual Masses and drive-thru confessions, the loneliness and spiritual emptiness. Standing outside our parish, just to see Jesus in the tabernacle, even when the churches were shuttered and the doors locked.

Oh Jesus, don’t you still want me? Don’t you still want us?

“I think the Lord is saying, ‘I want you to talk about Me, now,” Ruth continued. “The convent doesn’t have a monopoly on Me. You have to live that, and you have to find me, here.”

Her words pushed hard against me. I was finding the Lord, in my daily life. But I wanted more. Much more.

To be continued…

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*Name changed

Thank you so much for reading!

This Friday, March 25, I will meet with my editor in San Francisco to continue our discussion of my convent manuscript. Please pray for us and our meeting, that together we can shape this manuscript into the book God wishes it to be.

Please also pray for my friend Lisa, who is getting married in San Jose this Saturday!

Thank you, I will have another post out next week when I return from my trip to California. 😎

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