Convent Tuesday October 16, 2012

It is a perfectly crisp Fall day, and there is nowhere I'd rather be than volunteering at All Saints Convent. The language of the breeze through the trees seems especially clear here at the convent, as though Nature finds it easier to communicate through these trees that live on this quiet, soulful property.

I can tell you from experience that the souls of the trees themselves speak to humans and animals alike in this special place. I often go outside during the day to have a little chat with a maple here, an oak tree there.

Linus loves it here.

Of course, his main form of communication with the trees is generally less oral and more urinal.





My job here is not strenuous to say the least, and I often spend lots of time gazing out the window, very happily.

Today I was visited by Sister Ann who had successfully renewed her drivers license after letting it lapse for a decade or so. We shared a lively conversation as she described the perils of the driving test, a topic I am extremely interested in as Oldest (my 16 yr old daughter) will be making an attempt at the same in November.
 Sister Ann learned that the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) gives quarter to no man, and that includes nuns (click here if you'd like to read an Op/Ed piece I wrote on this subject). This test is hard, and includes a lot of real road driving on streets with narrow lanes and irate drivers. One almost thinks the MVA hires stunt pedestrians and road construction crews just to tighten the screws a bit.
It doesn't help when one has to peer around a wimple in order to change lanes.
But Sister Ann prevailed and is now a licensed driver in the state of Maryland.
She's considering changing her name to Sister A.J. Foyt. Probably not worth another visit to the MVA, though.