WEBVTT - S1: Ep 10 - Out There 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:08.200 Mary was out. After twenty years, twenty years of uplifting 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.080 moments of spiritual grace, twenty years of vexing questions about 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.960 her vocation. Mary Johnson put on her Paisley skirt and 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.680 gold blouse and stepped out of the convent in Rome 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.360 and into a van. This was it. Mary left the 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.520 Missionaries of Charity. Her sister picked her up from the 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.800 airport in Houston. On the way to her house, they 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.159 made a stab. Mary would be living outside the convent 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.600 for the first time in decades, and her sister said 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:36.760 she'd need a few things. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.400 I need to pick up a mattress for you. I 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:41.440 didn't know if you like the hard ones or the 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:42.280 soft ones. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.479 Mary wasn't used to getting to choose a mattress, let 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.560 alone having a real mattress. As a missionary of charity. 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.240 They'd stuff their own mattresses with wool or whatever was around, 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:52.960 and it was only about three inches thick. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.320 And here I was going to get to choose my 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.040 own mattress from this enormous selection. So that was kind 0:00:58.120 --> 0:00:58.520 of weird. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.960 Then her sister had an errand in mind, she had 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:03.720 a pool at her place, and she knew how much 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.319 Mary loved the water, at least when she was a kid. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:08.880 So have all things to do. After twenty years in 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.080 a convent, they went simsuit chopping. 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.040 I mean, most of my body hadn't seen the sun 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.600 in twenty years. And there I was going to get 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.200 a swimming suit. And I was just so embarrassed and like, 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:25.960 I wouldn't let her come into the dressing room with me. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.800 And anyway, we found a swimming suit that fit and 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:30.839 brought her home. 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.040 Mary had her own room, and even though so much 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:38.440 was new, new mattress, new swimsuit, new bedroom, she still 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.039 automatically woke up at four forty every morning. It was 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:43.920 like she was still in sync with the community she 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.039 had left as an MC. She felt that sense of 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.840 community from the moment she woke up. But now early 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:55.520 in the morning she just lay there quietly alone. She 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.160 might even go back to sleep. And she liked that too. 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.520 No better, well was going to ring, that was going 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.200 to force me out of bed and onto my knees. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.080 That was really nice. I could choose what I wanted 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:07.600 to get up. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.840 First thing each morning, Mary went to her sister's pool 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:22.280 and swam. It felt luxurious, It felt free. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.680 You can take off the habit and grow your hair 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:32.280 and start walking around like a regular person. But inside, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.799 being a missionary of charity leaves a very very very 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:40.400 deep mark. And for me being there for twenty years 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:46.400 and so deeply immersed, separating wasn't just simply a matter 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:48.560 of leaving. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.480 From a cocoa punch and iHeartRadio. This is the Turning 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:18.079 America Lands Part ten. Out there, the world had changed 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.440 since Mary Johnson became a missionary of charity in the 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.280 late seventies. Something she had a reference point for, but 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.920 a lot of it was completely foreign. Pumping your own gas, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.000 going to the ATM, using a computer. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.320 One time, my niece made popcorn in the microwave, and 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.720 I thought the house was going to explode because I 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.680 had no idea what that was. I had no idea 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.520 listen noises. Popcorn in the microwave was a revelation. 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:50.920 When she left the order, a sister gave her four 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.680 hundred German marks, the equivalent of a little more than 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:55.880 two hundred dollars, for her twenty years. 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.440 I looked at that deposit slip and I thought, look 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.480 at that. They gave me eleven dollars for every year 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:09.200 of service. Oh my gosh, talk about a minimum wage 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.720 eleven dollars a year. Eleven dollars a year. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.880 Mary still trusted in God, but that wasn't going to 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.720 pay the bills. One of her first jobs was at J. C. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.039 Penny in December of nineteen ninety seven, the Christmas rush. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.000 I was used to silence and prayer, and here it 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.359 was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.839 playing all the time. And it was all these people 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.080 with credit cards buying gift after gift, and a lot 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.000 of the stuff in the gift department were useless, chotski 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.320 kind of things, you know, these little figurines. I couldn't 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:50.400 figure out why people wanted little figurines. I was used 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.400 to repairing broken toys to gift to kids who would 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.200 otherwise have nothing on Christmas. It was strange. It was 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:57.960 strange for me. 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.840 Mary still remembers the first she went out to eat 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.560 in a restaurant. Her sister took the whole family out 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:04.000 to dinner. 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.640 I was faced there with this menu, with all these choices. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.000 It took me forever to make up my mind. I 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:11.840 didn't know if I would ever again, And you know, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.440 have a chance to choose what I was going to eat. 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.960 It was like this momentous decision. I think everybody was 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.040 getting kind of nervous with me because I wasn't making 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.160 up my mind, and the waiter had to come back, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.400 and then eventually I ordered something. 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.040 As Mary mapped out her new life, her mind wanted 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.960 back to Tom Father. Tom had made the thought of 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.320 leaving possible. He had helped her imagine a life outside 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:45.280 the convent. They pictured waking up together, making coffee, holding 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.120 hands in public without guilt or shame. He'd given her 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.480 a taste of a fuller life, and she knew that's 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.000 what God wanted for her. When Mary asked the MC's 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.839 for exclstration that year of contemplation before officially leaving the order, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.760 she had called Tom. He had asked her, does this 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.520 mean you would consider marrying me? She couldn't tell if 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.480 he meant it. It was such an awkward proposal, but 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.919 she needed time. Now she was in Texas, out of 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:14.560 her sorry and away from the convent. 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.159 So at a certain point I knew I was ready 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.440 to talk to him, and that if he was gonna ask, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.440 actually really directly, if I would consider marrying him, I 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.800 was ready to entertain that notion. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.680 So she called him. It was the first time they talked, 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.680 and she left, but once she got him on the phone, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.200 it was clear Tom had decided to remain a priest. 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.760 I definitely had to honor. That's that's what he wants. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:53.760 That's the way it is. And yeah, how did it 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.640 feel to hear that? I was prepared to hear that. 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.360 It was. It was kind of sad, you know, it 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.920 kind of shut one door for me. There's very often 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.280 even if something said, if it comes to a certain 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.840 sense of clarity, it's a kind of a gift. I 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.160 appreciated the clarity. That was good. 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.120 And she moved on, still trying to hear what God 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:31.080 had to say. When Mary left the Missionaries of Charity, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.000 she had work to do, not just finding a way 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.000 to make money or learning how to use technology. She 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.680 had to face the way the MCS had changed her internally. 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:42.120 She told me about a time she was staying at 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.880 a religious center. She'd moved out of her sister's house 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.360 after a couple of months, and she found this center 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.240 with sabbatical programming and wellness treatment for clergy. It was 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.800 around this time that she noticed how muddled. Her emotional 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:54.960 responses were. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.880 I was talking with the sister who was in charge 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.200 of the place, and it was some thing very sad 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.480 or upsetting. I don't really remember what I was talking 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:10.320 to her about, but I remember that I was very 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.600 sad and I felt like I wanted to cry, but 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.920 what came out was these giggles and just laughter. It 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.120 was like, I don't know how to express my emotions 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.120 properly anymore, because missionaries of charity are not supposed to 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.800 be sad. You're supposed to be cheerful all the time. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:35.280 You're supposed to smile. And I had just been disconnected 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:40.760 from what I might be feeling inside. How to express 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.720 that I didn't know, and so whenever there was something said, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.440 I was like laughing instead of crying. I think that 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.200 one of the big things that I've been working on 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:58.000 for many decades now is trying to reconnect my emotions 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:02.160 and their expression, trying to reconnect my mind and my body, 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.920 trying to be fully connected. I have been consciously working 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:07.480 on that. 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.559 In a way, she had to relearn how to think 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.440 and how to feel. God had called her out, but 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.280 in the real world it would take time to shift 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.720 her mindset. She had to untangle guilt and questions about faith, 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.079 come to terms with her relationship with Mother Teresa. There 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:30.559 was no one moment, no final epiphany. Mary was at 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.839 that center for priests and nuns when Mother Teresa died. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.040 I found out from one of them who had heard 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:42.439 it on television, and it was it was a shock. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:48.160 It was very hard to mourn Mother Teresa's passing alone 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:57.440 without the sisters. Why well, imagine someone who's very close 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.559 to you, in your family, and perhaps you're a mother, 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.720 and when she dies, you can't be with the family. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.359 You have to be off on your own, by yourself. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.160 That's hard. I had tried to call the sisters in 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:18.000 Rome many times but never managed to get through. Of course, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.000 the phone there was always busy, even during regular times, 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.920 so when mother died, even more so I never managed 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:26.560 to get through. 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.960 A few days after Mother Teresa died, there is a 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:35.080 memorial celebration at a cathedral in Houston. Mary went and 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.560 sat in the back. In his homily, the bishops spoke 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.880 about how he met Mother Teresa once when her plane 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:42.679 had a layover in Houston, and. 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.520 He spent about half an hour with her, and there 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.480 I was who had known and followed and loved her 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:49.520 for twenty years. 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.800 In the back, she knelt in the pew and cried. 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.040 And it all felt so strange. They had a big 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.520 picture of her up at the front, and after nearly 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.080 everyone had gone, I went and stood in front of 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.400 that picture. For a long time I did. I felt 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.400 like I had lost a family member or someone who 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.199 knew me, someone who I cared for, someone who cared 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.240 for me. Of course, my last conversation with mother had 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.480 been very, very difficult, so that's also kind of hard 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.079 knowing that somehow I had disappointed her. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:53.160 That feeling did not go away easily. Over the course 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:54.880 of your life, there are times when you have to 0:11:54.960 --> 0:12:00.920 leave things behind, maybe a relationship, a job, your family, home. 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.720 Leaving DMCs is all of those at once, and that's 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.080 just the first step. Then you have to make your 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:08.480 own way. 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.080 I mean, the first couple of weeks you're just happy 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.000 to be back with great meals and a great bed 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:19.880 and you know, incredibly loving people around you. But for me, 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.720 the other piece of the pain is you're gone for 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.280 so long and you're trying to come back into your 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:34.520 family and so many years of their connections and growth 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.200 and life you are not a part of. 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.480 Sue Weber is the sister who ran the AIDS hospice 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:40.679 in San Francisco. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.679 Even now, for me, there's elements and they're not good 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.640 or bad. I think they're just I think it will 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.840 always be that way, where you know you're a part 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.400 of the family and you're super connected. But there's an 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.439 element that there's so much that you missed in that 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.280 journey that you're a lot of time was on the 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:01.400 outside looking in. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.679 People don't really know what you've been through. How could they? 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.640 How do you describe what it's really like inside a 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.120 closed community led by a celebrity saint? How do you 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.640 get past people's assumptions. When Sue first left, she still 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.520 wore her sorry. She was still weighing what to do, 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.880 go back to the EMCES or leave. She'd moved to 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.520 her hometown in Pennsylvania to live with her parents. She says, 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.600 when you wear the white and blue sorry, everyone notices you. 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.480 You know, people would stop you on the street and 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.200 be like, can I touch you? 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.120 It's like people didn't see her. They saw what she 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.960 wore and what that represented. They saw Mother Teresa, the 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.760 mother Teresa. They thought they knew, and that got in 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:48.959 the way of her decision making. 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:53.760 I couldn't come to any clarity unless I took off 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:55.120 the habit and was seen. 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.199 So she rode to the MC's and got permission to 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.960 wear street clothes. Sue's sister Joan has been out of 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.120 the MC's for more than three decades. She still has 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.080 a picture of Mother Teresa in her office. I love 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:09.760 her to. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:14.480 Death, and she is I consider I have certain saints 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.760 in heaven that I love and read about and call 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.120 out to and you know, ask for divine intervention many times. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:22.520 She's one of them. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.800 So it was weird for her when she was teaching 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.040 a religion class for kids and a Mother Teresa impersonator 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:28.440 came by. 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.560 She puts an outfit on that looks like Mother Teresa's outfit, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.240 and then she like hangs laundry, and then she kind 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.960 of tells the story of Mother Teresa's life. I don't know, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.680 it's really weird. It's just you look at her and 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.960 you're like, I can't even explain it. It's like, you 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.560 know what the demeanor of a Mother Teresa nun is. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:48.800 You know what it looks like and what they do, 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.120 and really do you know? You know, you're sitting there 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:53.760 and you're like, Okay, that's not true. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:54.840 That's not true. 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.280 You know what I mean. It's like they try to 0:14:57.360 --> 0:14:59.880 understand by her readings or her or things that have 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.160 written about her, but they really don't know, and so 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:04.480 it wasn't there. 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:04.920 That's all. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.040 I was just saying, it's weird for me to watch 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.360 someone portray Mother Teresa. 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.280 Sue and Joan both knew Mother Teresa. It's a comfort 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.200 that they can talk about their time in the missionaries 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.120 of charity and they get it. It's part of what 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:19.880 makes them close. 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.920 There's not many people that understand the missionaries of charity, 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.040 and no matter how many times you try to explain it, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:27.280 a lot of people look at you like you're weird 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.760 because of the penances that you did and didn't understand 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.800 where we were coming from when we did the penances. 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.880 So I don't share my I really do not share 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.360 my story because people can't relate. If you haven't had 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.120 the experience, you can't relate. 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.880 Mary Johnson doesn't usually tell people she was an EMC. 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:50.440 It's just easier not to go there. 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.480 Where it usually comes up, actually is people will ask 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.600 me where are you from? Because I still have a 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.000 slight accent in my voice, and I'll say, well, you know, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.280 I was born in Michigan, kind of grew up in Texas. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.400 I say, you don't sound like that, and then you 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:14.200 know I Eventually I get around to saying something very vague, like, well, 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.120 I lived for a number of years in an international 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.560 community where we all spoke English, but hardly anyone as 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.440 their first language, and I had to develop a way 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.840 of speaking so they could understand me with clear vowels 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.280 and clear consonants, and they'll look at me with this 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.320 big question mark on their faces. And sometimes I just 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.240 have to explain what I did with my life for 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.440 twenty years. And when I do, people who aren't Catholic, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.600 they say, oh, what a wonderful thing to have done 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.280 with two decades of your life. And tell me about 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.200 mother Theresa, what was she really like? And nearly without 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.520 exception Catholics, they say, why did you leave? Because there 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.760 are some acceptable reasons for leaving and some that aren't. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:02.480 I had so much shame. 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.240 Kelly Dunham, the former sister who's a stand up comic, 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.840 felt rejected like Jesus gave up on her offer. To 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.720 give her life to him, and now here she was 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.240 on the outside with no money. 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.760 And I really didn't have any skills. I didn't have 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.359 any more skills that were applicable to the American workplace. 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.560 Like I was twenty three, twenty four years old, and 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.040 I had almost a four year gap. 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:26.840 In employment history. 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.080 That was hard to explain, you know. And I remember 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.560 I had a composition notebook that had like all the 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.000 jobs I was applying to, and I'd cut out a 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.200 New Yorker cartoon and it was a guy doing a 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.320 job interview and he said, am I a team player? 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.360 Are you kidding? I was in a cult? And I'd 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:48.159 crossed out cult and put convent. And that cartoon actually 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.919 helped me a lot, because I felt so alone. 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.199 When she first left, she was embarrassed about leaving, but 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:58.679 over time she feared being judged for joining in the 0:17:58.680 --> 0:17:59.240 first place. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.439 Yeah, I was more closeted about it. I didn't know 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.600 anybody else who was an ex non. And then as 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.679 I started going to something called the Conference for Catholic Lesbians, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:11.800 and that whole thing was full of. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.119 Excenns Kelly was done to learn just how many lesbian 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.640 ex nouns there were. They had pool parties and prayed 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:18.600 the Rosary. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:19.840 Which I thought was like such a great thing to 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.600 do at a pool party. And then at some point 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.840 everyone took off all the clothes and went swimming, and 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:25.560 I was like, this is great. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.880 This is way better than the combat. This is really great. 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.720 When Collette Livermore left the MCS and went home in Australia, 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.120 mother Teresa sent her letters asking her to come back. 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:42.520 She tucked little cards inside them. 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:48.800 Three times. She sent me a god depicting a crossed figure. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.200 In the illustration, Jesus was covered in wounds and bleeding, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:53.520 with his hands tied. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.879 With her riding at the bottom, saying be the one. 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.760 But Collett didn't go back. Instead ed she pursued what 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.439 she dreamed of as a teenager, She went to medical school. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.960 Most of her classmates were thirteen years younger than she was. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.480 She says in med school she learned to think again, 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.440 to doubt, to analyze the evidence rather than to give 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.960 unquestioning assent to what she was told. But even as 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.320 her worldview shifted, she still felt the shadow of her 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.840 eleven years as an MC. In med school, she avoided 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.640 telling people she'd been a sister with Mother Teresa. They 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.000 treated her differently if they knew, and instead of volunteering 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.959 for procedures, she'd find herself hanging back hoping she wouldn't 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:31.520 be selected. 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:37.639 My confidence was gone. I was very unassertive as well. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.119 You know in classes, who've got all these young people 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.080 around you bringing with self confidence and they want to 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:46.679 have a go. 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.240 As a doctor. For a while she worked in Northern 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.280 Australia and every week or two she'd fly two hundred 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.439 and eighty miles on a mail carrier to a remote 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:00.000 settlement and treat the Aboriginal community there. Sometimes Kleet worked 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.199 alongside MCS sisters. On a rare occasion, when Collette got 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.320 a chance to eat a meal with them, they asked 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.879 her why she left. She explained, and Collette found that 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.600 they too had experiences when superiors told them to refuse 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.080 health to the sick. She was relieved it validated her experience. 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.119 Collet's professional life was fulfilling. Her work as a doctor 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:23.960 was busy, and she got a chance to travel and 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.320 experience cultures that were new to her. Her life was full, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:29.480 but the EMC imprint was there. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:35.200 Well, I haven't married. I would have liked to have. 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.800 I was really really wanting to find a life partner, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.520 but it just didn't happen. 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.800 Do you think the missionaries of charity had affected some 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.280 of that? Was it timing or also just kind of 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.240 it took a while to break out of that mindset, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:55.520 do you think or Oh? 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.240 I think it was both. I know I did want 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.600 a partner and to have kids because the biological clock 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:08.840 was ticking, I had very poor self confidence. I mean, 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.000 lots of people leave the comment and find partners the 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.280 next day, so I don't know what it is with me. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:21.200 That's what I used to want, But yeah, I didn't anyway, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.000 and I'd get very sad and thinking everyone can find 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.640 a partner except me, what's wrong with me? Blah blah 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:32.399 blah and so. But I got over that in a while. 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.679 I thought, you know, if it happens, it happens. But 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:46.359 never did. Oh, everybody gets lonely. Sometimes I'd get hope 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:51.760 from friendships, and I find hoping. You know, my nephews 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:57.440 had a new little girl. She's beautiful. I've got great nieces, 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.720 and I find a lot of solace in nature, in 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:07.159 beautiful things. When I go bushwalking and seeing flowers and 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:12.240 beautiful vistas of the sea. All that makes me feel happy. 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:18.480 You get those moments where you're just there and it's everything. 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.959 The most important thing is love. Everything you can do 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.000 to strengthen that is the most valuable thing. 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.040 I would have been happy to date there. Nobody was 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.439 interested in me. I really stuck out in Southeast Texas. 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.600 You know. I wasn't really kind of dating material also 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.439 in the beginning, and I was still trying to figure 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:51.480 things out. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.280 For a while. Mary Johnson toyed with the idea of 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:58.119 starting her own community, one for women and men, open 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.120 to many faiths, even those with no faith. It would 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.520 be only the good parts of the MCS, a life 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:07.520 focused on love and serving the poor. She ended up 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.280 working a number of different jobs. She ironed clothes, worked 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.159 as a receptionist in a doctor's office, and as a 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:17.320 liturgical director at a church. She went back to college 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:19.840 and then went on to graduate school to study writing, 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:22.040 and that's where she met Luke. 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.880 And we just had an immediate connection. 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.960 About three years after she left the MCS, Mary was 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.280 at a ten day writing residency. On her first day, 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:37.120 she was overwhelmed and intimidated the people she met. Pontificated 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.200