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THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
But perhaps my story needs an even earlier start. As a young
woman facing the choices of early adulthood, I struggled with
the direction my life would take. I was offered a scholarship to
a College in the US, a tempting option, particularly at that
time when foreign travel and study abroad were not the norm.
The prospect of marriage and a family was also appealing. God
had other plans. There was a relentless call to the Religious
Life. This had no emotional appeal for me but nonetheless
remained relentless.
My mother was opposed to my joining the convent. My father was
more indulgent. My mother thought that I was too young to make
such a choice, that I had just finished school and needed to
experience life. She shipped me off to my married sister who
lived in the USA. When I returned to Trinidad, I went out to
work and did the things young people do. I dated, partied, went
to carnival fetes and beach limes, played tennis, went hiking
and camping. I had a full and active life and I enjoyed it. And
yet there was a persistent undercurrent that pulled at me.
I experienced conflict with one part of my personality wanting
one thing; another part something else. At the surface level I
was drawn in one direction; in my depth I was called elsewhere.
The task of personality integration and of more harmonious
relationship between the surface self and the deep self lay in
the future. At that time there was only the pain of
fragmentation.
I finally gave way to the Call and entered Religious Life. I did
not like the life. I had had no desire to enter the convent and
I had no desire to stay there. Within a week I wanted to leave;
as indeed I did many times after this, but this was at the level
of surface desire. At another level, I chose to stay. I have no
doubt that I exercised strong will willfully as I made myself do
what I believed I had to do. At that stage I had no
understanding or experience of the surrender of willingness.
Imperfect as my understanding was of God’s Will, it became
central to my life. But, as you probably know, it is not easy to
know God’s Will. Is it simply in blind obedience and conformity
or is there a deeper personal responsibility? Is external
behaviour enough or is an inner attitude equally necessary? And
even when I thought I knew what God willed, I did not find it
easy to give way to that Will.
Force creates its own difficulties. The issues that I shoved
aside did not go away; they went underground and made sniper
shots at me through the following years, erupting fully in my
mid years. These were the great testing times during which I
learnt at greater depth about choice and responsibility and
about the consequences of choices. In the midst of the darkness
and confusion of these mid years, God in His goodness sent a
guide to lead me through the wilderness.
At some level I knew that I could remain faithful to the path to
which I had been called only if I kept my eyes steadily on God.
At times I forgot this, I drifted from the path; I slipped; I
fell; I got up again. The years passed and the struggle
continued. God’s ways are mysterious. As I look back on my life
I feel only gratitude for the path along which I have been led
and which continues to open up before me. |
