The Yearning Octopus (Part I of There-and-Back-Again)

This is Part I of a four-part blog series called "There-And-Back-Again". Together they tell the story of my mid-semester break, wherein I spent the ten days living as a contemplative nun at Jamberoo Abbey in NSW. On a surface level, it was a beautiful, peaceful experience. In my heart, though, Jesus was doing some seriously deep excavation and vocation-discernment roller-coastering. It’s not an easy journey to summarise, so these posts are pretty long. Read on if you dare.

P.S. Long-term readers of Ardent Devotion will know that I’ve been discerning my vocation since my final year of high school. If you’re keen to read previous posts about where the Lord’s been taking me, check out these posts from the blog and from my time working for Vocation Brisbane:

• Of Dress, Discernment, and Detachment
• Not Yet
• Shades of Beige (from Vocation Brisbane blog)
• Beginning with a Convent, Ending with a Wedding (from Vocation Brisbane blog)
• Echoes
• How do you solve a problem like discernment? *recommended

There and Back Again
Part I: The Yearning Octopus

Remember that time last year I wrote a blog post about listening and learning to love? Here's a quick recap: Kate’s fed up with debate over the plebiscite – Kate’s actually just fed up with the amount of noise in the world. Kate’s beginning to realize that Real Love flows through hearts disposed to listen.

Basically, Kate’s discovering the validity of contemplative life.  

After I hit publish on the blog post, I impulsively emailed Sister Hilda Scott of Jamberoo Abbey to say, “Hey. I think…. like I don’t think, but still, I kinda think – that maybe God miiiiight be asking me to discern contemplative life. Maybe. Not really. Okay a little bit. Can I come stay with you?” (not quite in those words)

The last time I stayed at Jamberoo, in 2016, I did not at all feel God asking me to become a contemplative nun. But I did feel Him: the “deep calling upon deep” that reassures my anxious heart and re-grounds me in my deepest identity. Throughout the last two years, Jesus has been drawing me further and further into an understanding of contemplative living as the answer to my heart’s restlessness.

But the last two years have also been busy. I’ve attempted to start a parish youth ministry from scratch. I’ve studied a bucketload of tantalizingly interesting university subjects. I’ve travelled and choir-ed and volunteered and scrambled up waterfalls. I’ve said ‘yes’ to too many things and reaped the exhaustion that comes from ignoring your need for a Sabbath.

And especially this semester, I’ve felt myself getting shallow. “Shallow” not in these sense of what I do or what I care about, necessarily. But “shallow” in that I’ve been living too quickly to dive beyond the superficial. “Shallow” in that I’ve lost touch with the ‘deep calling upon deep’ that sustains me.

For months Jesus has been pursuing me, speaking little truths into my prayer life that challenge my Martha-esque attitude and pull me back towards the heart of what it means to be a Christian – not relentless competition for God’s favour, but companionship with Him. Being still and knowing that He is God. All that jazz.

Easier said than done.

Anyway, in all this, Jamberoo Abbey lurked vaguely in the background of my mind. Sister Hilda and I had already fixed on the ten days following Easter Sunday as a time for me to come stay in the enclosed part of the abbey as an "aspirant" and see what monastic life really felt like.

Not that I was taking it all that seriously – a religious vocation I might have, a vocation to enclosed monastic life… yeah, nah. Besides, I was too busy to give it all that much thought.

Trouble was, despite the busy-busy-busyness, I was still painfully aware of the Yearning Octopus

The image and concept of Yearning Octopus belong to Tim Urban of Wait But Why.

I was painfully aware of having far too many and far too grand desires in my soul. I wanted peace, but I also wanted adventure. I craved a life that answered the needs of the world, but also craved relief from my tendency to burden-bear and assimilate others’ sufferings. I desired meaningful relationships, and avenues to wield the gifts God had given me, and opportunities to seek out beauty in the world, and also chocolate. And no matter how assiduously I tried to satisfy each one of the tentacles of the Yearning Octopus, I was still painfully aware that nothing was ever quite enough.

Some people might term this kind of ‘painful awareness’ a form of anxious perfectionism or permanent dissatisfaction with life. I’d ask you not to put such negative labels on Mr. Yearning Octopus, thank-you-very-much.

Because desire isn’t bad. God has placed eternity on our hearts, and calls to us in everything we love and want, saying “Come to Me.”

Reading The Neverending Story at the end of last year reminded me that when we “go the way of our wishes, from first to last, we shall find out what it is we want most.” Desire in itself is not wrong – the only ‘wrong’ thing is turning to something far shallower than we need to authentically satisfy desire. ‘Wrong’ comes when we settle for superficiality and selfishness.

I didn’t want to settle. By the time we hit Holy Week, I was ready to go the way of my wishes. I was yearning and aching for so many things I couldn’t even articulate, and I knew that only in peace and stillness was I going to be able to hear God’s voice in the midst of it all.

Most of all, I wanted to know - not just at a head level, but at a deep-down heart level - who I was and whose I was. I'd heard these truths so many times at different ministry and church events, but I also knew that something hadn't quite gotten through my whole system yet.

I knew that God had more in store for me.

So on Easter Sunday my house-family (I board with a seriously incredible family) and I packed up the car and drove south. House-mama and I dropped house-papa and house-sister in Sydney, leaving them to peruse art galleries and architecture while we headed for the land of habits and heart-song. 

Driving up the mountain, I said a quick prayer in my heart: "Just help me to be open, Papa. Let me receive whatever you need me to receive here."

Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

~~~

Oh look - it's the end of Part I! Nice and short, hey? Yeah, just wait for Part II. We haven't even arrived at the convent yet. LOL. 

When you're ready you can click through to Part II: To the Pinnacle