Beyond Generations

By DON ROLLINS

“These are radical, badass women who have lived lives devoted to social justice, and we can learn from them.” — Sarah Jane Bradley, Nuns and Nones

There’s a special place in Glory Land for today’s nuns, cloistered or non-. Called to a changing vocation in a changing Roman Catholic communion, the life of contemplation and service is demanding in ways previous generations of sisters could scarce imagine.

Consequently, while it’s not clear if this deeper testing of faith and calling is a factor in the diminishing number of nuns and those considering the sisterhood; the average age of an American nun continues to rise (currently at 80) portending a religious vocation fast going the way of the Shakers.

This dismal but honest assessment of American women religious is rarely accompanied by encouraging stories: the figures and trends are as they are. All the more remarkable, the news that some hipster millennial urbanites are turning to this fading way of life for guidance on their journeys.

Piloted by a 32-year-old male seeker and septuagenarian Sister of Mercy living in the Bay Area, Nuns and Nones is an intentional process for progressive millennials (most of whom identify as “nones,” as in subscribing to no identified religion) to gather in deep conversation with nuns about activism grounded in spiritual practices.

Participants in the project, nuns as well as nones, testify to the connections between mentor and mentee as trust is established. There is a sense of wonder that the separation of years need not be a separation of spirit.

But equally important to the relationship is nurturing the progressive activist within both nun and none — the one a seasoned veteran steeped in the struggles and champions gone before; the other knee-deep in the muck of today’s world, possessed of new ideas and strategies.

Online in a dozen urban areas, some millennials participating in Nuns and Nones have found housing with their mentors’ convents, paying for their keep by taking care of ailing sisters or working on the buildings and grounds. The influx of resident nones won’t reverse sisterhood’s decline, but it will slow the pace and thereby extend some profound connections.

Meantime, all progressives, religious or not, would gain from cross-generational communities such as these. There is far too much we don’t know about one another until given the chance to learn. And there is far too much at stake these days to remain in our generational silos and echo chambers, fragmented and distant from kindred souls who just happen to belong to another era.

Postscript: More on Nuns and Nones at nunsandnones.org.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2019

Populist.com