Read Online Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell by Michael Conniff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Conniff
Tags: Science-Fiction
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with God?”
July 18, 1967
Thank God for Hartford. I am a candidate here in a political campaign, stumping for the Order instead of for myself. I go from the Cathedral to the auditorium to lunch with the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, with each place more packed than the last. Then I speak in a ballroom with twinkling prom lights and tinkling glasses, in front of every high school senior from every parochial school in the county. In the middle of summer, no less! There is also a tea with the Sisters in the Order and a tour of our hospital outside the city. For the first time on this trip I feel a shaft of hope.
July 19, 1967
On to Boston. “All my life I’ve wanted to be a nun,” says a young girl named Gloria. “But what does being a nun have to do with the revolution ?” It’s a matter of devotion, I say. “How can I be devoted to one thing,” Gloria says, “when I don’t believe in anything ?” To believe in God is to believe in everything , I say. “You don’t believe that,” Gloria says. No, I think, but I wish I did.
July 20, 1967
New York. The biggest city in the world and we can’t even fill the room. On the phone Jane tells me New York is the worst, with more defectors than anywhere else in the country and just two recruits signed up all year. For dinner I meet with Becca in a small restaurant on the East Side. She shows me her latest pictures of street people on the Bowery. Why do you go down there? I say. “It’s as close to God as I can get,” she says.
July 22, 1967
San Francisco. I call Nancy late enough to wake her up. I miss you, I say. “Me too,” she says. She sounds groggy, exhausted. I love you, I say. “I know,” Nancy says.
July 24, 1967
The City of Angels. But you would never know it. It’s much worse than New York even. Who has time for the Church when you’re shooting a movie? The Sisters, their eyes the color of silent films, tune out my talk. I have so little to say to them it scares me. And my individual audiences with the recruits are the worst ever. It’s a beautiful bright sunny day outside, and I feel like I am asking them to live out their lives in a cave. The girls seem different to me now, too full of questions about the war and what the Order is going to do about it. Where is my angel?
July 25, 1967
South to Palm Springs. Everywhere I go they ask me about God, and every time I duck the question. My soul is both naked and bare. I am having to profess to things I no longer believe in. I can’t do it any more. I’ve been sucked dry, I tell Nancy. I’m coming home. “So soon?” she says.
July 30, 1967
I was gone only ten days but it’s like the whole world has changed. Nancy won’t come to bed with me. She won’t even touch me.
July 31, 1967
“I had time to think while you were gone,” Nancy says. I pour her a drink but she won’t drink it so I drain hers and mine both. Think about what? I say. “Damnation,” Nancy says.
August 1, 1967
“We must admit to what we have done before God before we can move on,” Nancy tells me. It wasn’t about God, I say. It was about sin. “Everything is about God,” Nancy says. “Especially sin.”
August 2, 1967
Nancy says she is either married to God or to me and that it can’t be both. “We can’t stay in sin,” she says. “Not now. No matter how much we love each other.” She believes in God the Father but she knows the flesh is weak. She says she loves me even though she knows it’s a sin.
August 29, 1967
All that work and the defections are worse than ever. In New Haven, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs. My trip did absolutely no good, except in Hartford, and Hartford doesn’t count. “It’s not your fault,” Jane says. It never is, I say.
September 3, 1967
We had a full class of recruits until this last week. Now we are down for the first time since Mother Superior gave me responsibility for recruiting. I have never been so
July 18, 1967
Thank God for Hartford. I am a candidate here in a political campaign, stumping for the Order instead of for myself. I go from the Cathedral to the auditorium to lunch with the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, with each place more packed than the last. Then I speak in a ballroom with twinkling prom lights and tinkling glasses, in front of every high school senior from every parochial school in the county. In the middle of summer, no less! There is also a tea with the Sisters in the Order and a tour of our hospital outside the city. For the first time on this trip I feel a shaft of hope.
July 19, 1967
On to Boston. “All my life I’ve wanted to be a nun,” says a young girl named Gloria. “But what does being a nun have to do with the revolution ?” It’s a matter of devotion, I say. “How can I be devoted to one thing,” Gloria says, “when I don’t believe in anything ?” To believe in God is to believe in everything , I say. “You don’t believe that,” Gloria says. No, I think, but I wish I did.
July 20, 1967
New York. The biggest city in the world and we can’t even fill the room. On the phone Jane tells me New York is the worst, with more defectors than anywhere else in the country and just two recruits signed up all year. For dinner I meet with Becca in a small restaurant on the East Side. She shows me her latest pictures of street people on the Bowery. Why do you go down there? I say. “It’s as close to God as I can get,” she says.
July 22, 1967
San Francisco. I call Nancy late enough to wake her up. I miss you, I say. “Me too,” she says. She sounds groggy, exhausted. I love you, I say. “I know,” Nancy says.
July 24, 1967
The City of Angels. But you would never know it. It’s much worse than New York even. Who has time for the Church when you’re shooting a movie? The Sisters, their eyes the color of silent films, tune out my talk. I have so little to say to them it scares me. And my individual audiences with the recruits are the worst ever. It’s a beautiful bright sunny day outside, and I feel like I am asking them to live out their lives in a cave. The girls seem different to me now, too full of questions about the war and what the Order is going to do about it. Where is my angel?
July 25, 1967
South to Palm Springs. Everywhere I go they ask me about God, and every time I duck the question. My soul is both naked and bare. I am having to profess to things I no longer believe in. I can’t do it any more. I’ve been sucked dry, I tell Nancy. I’m coming home. “So soon?” she says.
July 30, 1967
I was gone only ten days but it’s like the whole world has changed. Nancy won’t come to bed with me. She won’t even touch me.
July 31, 1967
“I had time to think while you were gone,” Nancy says. I pour her a drink but she won’t drink it so I drain hers and mine both. Think about what? I say. “Damnation,” Nancy says.
August 1, 1967
“We must admit to what we have done before God before we can move on,” Nancy tells me. It wasn’t about God, I say. It was about sin. “Everything is about God,” Nancy says. “Especially sin.”
August 2, 1967
Nancy says she is either married to God or to me and that it can’t be both. “We can’t stay in sin,” she says. “Not now. No matter how much we love each other.” She believes in God the Father but she knows the flesh is weak. She says she loves me even though she knows it’s a sin.
August 29, 1967
All that work and the defections are worse than ever. In New Haven, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs. My trip did absolutely no good, except in Hartford, and Hartford doesn’t count. “It’s not your fault,” Jane says. It never is, I say.
September 3, 1967
We had a full class of recruits until this last week. Now we are down for the first time since Mother Superior gave me responsibility for recruiting. I have never been so
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