Nuns?

Because of the volunteer youth work I used to do and did for nearly a decade between 2000 and 20109, I have had the pleasure of working with dozens of young people who are devoted to their faith. Seen them develop as individuals and make a positive contribution to the church and their community, the world being a much better place with them in it. However, I was puzzled for some time by the behaviour of some of the young women I knew/know and their approach to the world. I'm not going to mention names, but these young women seemed devoted beyond question to their faith, active and committed to the church, with their personal lives seemingly fitting around the expression of their dedication and commitment. I found it quite odd that these young women choose to associate with much older, single or widowed women, rather than there peers. No love interests, no partying, hardly any secular activity at all apart from that required of the faith that they expressed. I guess because of my secular and somewhat wild upbringing and teenage years I looked at it with different eyes than those who had always and had faith and been part of church. "What's going on here?" I asked myself on numerous occasions considering the words of Jesus who said that he came to earth so that we "may have life and have it abundantly." Surely this wasn't abundant life in the truest sense?

It has only since I have left the church that I have been able to look at this differently and was reminded by God of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8, " But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am." It is a calling and these young women are obeying the call on their life, marriage is temporal and in heaven there will be no marriage. It is a thing of this fallen world and will not be a thing of the restored world. After considering this for some time I came to respect these young women for the lives that they lead, the calling that they are living and ruminated that they were in fact Nuns. Not in the old sense of shutting themselves away, or making themselves stand out, but in a new sense of being in the world, but not of it. To be dedicated to the Church, to God and to the people whilst living amongst them.

When I left volunteer youth work to study for the ministry I was given a book as a present Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing by Andy Freeman and Pete Greig. It talked about the movement among the youth, the "Boiler room" prayer, and a new kind of monk. When I look at these young ladies, I think of this yes, but perhaps of a New Convent, a Punk Nun, a new way of doing something with an old and proven tradition. I may be way off here, but it has kind of struck a cord in my soul.


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