I Have a Thing for Nuns

My confession: yes I spent eleven years in Catholic schools and glad I did. Ever since writing "I love you" to Sister Mary Henry on my first grade phonics sheets , I have had a thing for nuns. They were mother-like, they were smart and they were the only ones who held boys accountable in my 1960's male dominated growing-up world.

I love the memory of long black and white habits and rosaries flowing in the wind as the nuns jumped rope with us. It calms me to remember sitting in a circle singing folk songs with Sister Jean Baptiste. I am sure part of me was formed by attending an all female high school where indeed "girls ruled."

Though it probably had more to do with wanting to be with my friends , I even paid my own way through three years of parochial high school. Like any teenager, we found ways to rebel by drawing on our saddle shoes and rolling our wool plaid uniforms into miniskirts. Self expression came from colored knee highs and ribbons in our hair - they missed those in the dress code. The sisters had their own form if fiestiness. They taught us how to put on mascara. We had Anti-Vietnam War protests in the gym. My Junior year I took a class "Revolution and Social Change" and studied Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Saul Alinsky.

Though I don't recall the title, years ago I read a book on the history of nuns and their compelling contributions in education, health care and support of those in need. We miss that in society now. Sisterhood also presented an alternative to marriage and a means to have a profession in the era that alternatives did not exist for women.

For a laugh and a great podcast with on nuns by a gay Jewish guy talking about nuns (if that isn't art...), visit: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2009/07/20/090720on_audio_rudnick