The Sisters at this Convent are holy indeed. None are admitted to Wellesley College save those who dedicate their lives to God, known outside the Convent as Success. Success, in Her diverse forms, is the end of all our means and the divinity to whom we profess loyalty.
However.
Success has often warned us about idols -- lesser beings that command our attention away from Her almighty presence. These idols, which will be further detailed in later posts, include Romantic Relationships, Shopping, Having Fun, Partying, and Trying New Things.
(The Medievalist pauses to confess that Wellesley sisters pursue all these idols, despite their holiness. They luxuriate in the sins of a good Friday night and pay homage to a myriad group of indulgences. I also comment that it seems, occasionally, that the Superiors encourage these sins. However, I judge not lest I be judged for enjoying Cambridge Square at dusk.)
The GRAND idol remains, first and foremost in the Sisters' minds, Sleep. Sleep beckons with a seductive figure, a devil who takes the form of the most attractive sex (shifting from sister to sister), and strip-teases upon pillows made of down and Tempur-Pedic.
Sleep wins over most of the Sisters during their stay at the Convent. Some Sisters acknowledge their sin openly, who confess to the Medievalist that they slept fifteen hours a day their freshman year.
Others believe that Sleep is the Breakfast of Losers, and crow at their three o'clock bedtimes and five o'clock alarms. Sleep rules our lives in a contradictory manner, a sinful anti-logic. Sleep does not commune with the angel Health - instead, Sleep has a mind of its own.
Even the Medievalist struggles with this demon. In fact, I cannot be happy in my convent stay without a solid eight hours. When I receive less, I proceed to complain loudly to the rest of the Sisters about what five hours of sleep does to one's wimple.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Marathon Prayer to TV Saints
Once upon a time, the Christian church venerated the holy people in their midst. This veneration began as an informal respect, later to a formal appreciation, and eventually to a quasi-cult system where Saint Genevieve was worshipped for her refusal to sacrifice the precious flower to an invader and medieval thieves could pray to their very own Saint Nick.
The saints never achieved divinity, of course, but they appropriated a sense of help. The saints were your nurses, your Apple Geniuses, your State Farm agent: in your neighborhood to help you with the Big things in life.
At The Convent in Massachusetts, we also worship our saints. We have many of them -- some who are Departed Sisters*-- but also those whom we have never met. Like medieval saints, they are removed from our experience of reality and yet influence them.
The most popular saints at The Convent are Dr. Temperance Brennan, Dr. Meredith Gray, Doctor Who (a more remote saint, whose cult is therefore more respected for its foreign origins), occasionally Don Draper, Rory Gilmore, Michael Scott (the patron saint of lunatic employers) and the entire cast of every Korean drama ever produced.
These holy men and women provide aid to the Sisters of Wellesley. They relieve the need to process, analyze, deconstruct and fail to reconstruct Reality. These TV saints protect Wellesley sisters from believing that everyone knows where James Joyce lived after the age of 22. They remind us that romantic relationships are valuable despite their lack of resume appeal.
They remind the straight Sisters that men exist, and that some of those men are attractive. And these televised sages remind Wellesley Sisters that the Sisters are smart, and that one day they shall achieve union with Success; for if we worship in the cult of Bones, we too can be successful forensic anthropologists with David Boreneaz as our luscious partner.
The Medievalist must confess that there is a surprising aspect to the Wellesley cults. There is a fervent dedication that I myself have succumbed to: the radical forms of worship. It is not uncommon, and even I dare say expected, for most Sisters to spent one week per semester in prayer to these Saints. These televised marathons take place in the quiet solitude of the cell, where the Sister may pray to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and learn the miracles by heart (seasons 1-3, at least.)
I would continue this deliberation, but even in my summery separation from the Convent, I still dedicate myself to the patron saints, Evan R. Lawson and Jane Marple, to whom I owe adoration.
Later Note: The Medievalist failed in her worship of Jane Marple, as she claimed higher allegiance to Sleep, the rival god to Success. Success will hopefully not harm her; Jane Marple, on the other hand, might.
*Departed Sisters: sisters who have left This Life to enter Life with Success. Notable Sisters of this convent are those known to all, such as Nora Ephron, Madeleine Albright, Madeleine Albright's current successor, Diane Sawyer, and so on.
The saints never achieved divinity, of course, but they appropriated a sense of help. The saints were your nurses, your Apple Geniuses, your State Farm agent: in your neighborhood to help you with the Big things in life.
At The Convent in Massachusetts, we also worship our saints. We have many of them -- some who are Departed Sisters*-- but also those whom we have never met. Like medieval saints, they are removed from our experience of reality and yet influence them.
The most popular saints at The Convent are Dr. Temperance Brennan, Dr. Meredith Gray, Doctor Who (a more remote saint, whose cult is therefore more respected for its foreign origins), occasionally Don Draper, Rory Gilmore, Michael Scott (the patron saint of lunatic employers) and the entire cast of every Korean drama ever produced.
These holy men and women provide aid to the Sisters of Wellesley. They relieve the need to process, analyze, deconstruct and fail to reconstruct Reality. These TV saints protect Wellesley sisters from believing that everyone knows where James Joyce lived after the age of 22. They remind us that romantic relationships are valuable despite their lack of resume appeal.
They remind the straight Sisters that men exist, and that some of those men are attractive. And these televised sages remind Wellesley Sisters that the Sisters are smart, and that one day they shall achieve union with Success; for if we worship in the cult of Bones, we too can be successful forensic anthropologists with David Boreneaz as our luscious partner.
The Medievalist must confess that there is a surprising aspect to the Wellesley cults. There is a fervent dedication that I myself have succumbed to: the radical forms of worship. It is not uncommon, and even I dare say expected, for most Sisters to spent one week per semester in prayer to these Saints. These televised marathons take place in the quiet solitude of the cell, where the Sister may pray to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and learn the miracles by heart (seasons 1-3, at least.)
I would continue this deliberation, but even in my summery separation from the Convent, I still dedicate myself to the patron saints, Evan R. Lawson and Jane Marple, to whom I owe adoration.
Later Note: The Medievalist failed in her worship of Jane Marple, as she claimed higher allegiance to Sleep, the rival god to Success. Success will hopefully not harm her; Jane Marple, on the other hand, might.
*Departed Sisters: sisters who have left This Life to enter Life with Success. Notable Sisters of this convent are those known to all, such as Nora Ephron, Madeleine Albright, Madeleine Albright's current successor, Diane Sawyer, and so on.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Davis Scholars, the Wonder Breads
Davis Scholars are the Wonder Bread that Nia Vardalos always wished she had; they are our magic deep-fried henna zit cream, our Left Eyebrow Relic of the other St. John, our Older Sisters.
When first arriving to Wellesley, the first-year entering the Novitiate gather in the Church of Western Pluralism* and worship at the altar of Success. After singing the hymns to hard work and fame, the Mother Superior or Director of the Novitiate does a roll call of all the sisters present.
The group that surprises most first-years are the Davis Scholars, a small group of older women who cheer the way they did back in "Grease": without shame. Most average first-years are insulted by the presence of these older women. The Older Sisters, entering late into life, have forgone the trials and tribulations that so define the First Year Sister experience.
When first arriving to Wellesley, the first-year entering the Novitiate gather in the Church of Western Pluralism* and worship at the altar of Success. After singing the hymns to hard work and fame, the Mother Superior or Director of the Novitiate does a roll call of all the sisters present.
The group that surprises most first-years are the Davis Scholars, a small group of older women who cheer the way they did back in "Grease": without shame. Most average first-years are insulted by the presence of these older women. The Older Sisters, entering late into life, have forgone the trials and tribulations that so define the First Year Sister experience.
These trials include said acne, nonexistent budgets, beer binges, living in a room with a Fanatic, calling home more often than you called your first boyfriend, and being Young and Restless without ever having seen a soap opera.
Despite the annoyance of the First Years, they soon learn that the Davis Scholars/Older Sisters are a Blessing sent from God/Success. They are a reminder of Normal Life in a convent that defies Normality and embraces the asceticism of People Who Work Their Asses Off. The Older Sisters have lived their lives as wedding photographers, successful businesswomen, teen mothers. They have embraced Normal Life and decided to complete themselves with a Wellesley degree.
Marie de France wrote an interesting protofeminist Lai called Eliduc. All the principal characters end up in gender-appropriate single-sex religious safehouses; both the Madonna and the whore. This reflected a general ideal for our medieval women: you lived your life, then you finished it in a convent so that you could make your peace with God.
Davis Scholars have Lived, and then entered The Convent. The rest of us entered the Beloved Convent, and...
*More on the Church of Western Pluralism later, if the Medievalist can dare to distinguish between the branches of East and West Pluralism without offending Easterners, Westerners, or those who prefer not to declare their geographical orientation.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
A New Kind of Nunsense
For the record, I am not a nun.
I am, however, a student at Wellesley College, which is the modern day equivalent of a convent.
Wellesley is that school you may have heard about if you read the New York Times enough. Check the Secretaries of State roster; check out a few Julia Roberts movies; watch any diehard woman anchor on any news channel and chances are, she's an alumna. Wellesley is one of those schools, elite and proud of it, but we are also a women's school, so we get to feel like outsiders.
The best of both worlds, in fact, because some of us still like Miley Cyrus.
And on this blog, as in real life, I find the best way to explain Wellesley as a convent. We are not defined by the absence of men but the curious eccentricities of all-female community.
In a post-Enlightenment twist, we don't serve an omnipotent, all-loving Christian God; we serve the omnipotent, all-hating Success. In a post-Foucault twist, Success allows us to define Her whatever way we want to define Her.
For most of us at Wellesley, Success defines herself in Fortune 500 and non-wedding mentions in the New York Times. You don't make the Times, you don't make the cut. Get on your knees and start repenting for your waste of the $200,000 education and the best profs on the planet. The Hail Marys are heard in the Science Center between the hours of 2AM and 5AM.
Most people think nuns in the medieval era were chaste. They were supposed to be, of course, celibacy vows and all that. Yet Boccaccio, the delightful spinner of the Decameron, delighted in scandalous tales of nuns gone wild. The theme continues to present day, when one cannot search for "free nun pictures" on Google Images without going bug-eyed and losing any innocence one's Disney gave one. Wellesley girls... well, everybody thinks they have the Wellesley love life pretty well figured out.
Life at Wellesley, in sum, is crazy and complicated. We try to create paradigms for our experience -- it's like living in the army, it's like living in a boarding school, it's like living in the White House when Geena Davis is president-- but I'm sticking to mine. Stick around with me and see what kind of nunsense this really is.
* Davis Scholars: moms and grandmothers who give up interesting careers like wedding photography to study brain surgery and keep the rest of our brains intact by placing hands on shoulders and baking cookies. The cookies are for those who mourn the AVI Fresh refusal to bake anything resembling a North American Cookie cookicus. Davis Scholars are also the only students who believe in Normal Life.
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