WEBVTT - S1: Ep 10 - Out There 0:00:03.960 --> 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 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.960 her vocation. Mary Johnson put on her Paisley skirt and 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.720 gold blouse and stepped out of the convent in Rome 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.400 and into a van. This was it. Mary left the 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.520 Missionaries of Charity. Her sister picked her up from the 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.760 airport in Houston. On the way to her house, they 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.120 made a stop. Mary would be living outside the convent 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.560 for the first time in decades, and her sister said, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.320 she need a few things. I need to pick up 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.239 a mattress for you. I didn't know if you like 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.599 the hard ones or the soft ones. Mary wasn't used 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.120 to getting to choose a mattress, let alone having a 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.199 real mattress. As a missionary of charity. They'd stuffed their 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.440 own mattresses with wool or whatever was around, and it 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.360 was only about three inches thick. And here I was 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.120 going to get to choose my own mattress from this 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.360 enormous selection. So that was kind of weird. Then her 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.000 sister had an their errand in mind, she had a 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.039 pool at her place, and she knew how much Mary 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.240 loved the water, at least when she was a kid. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:08.880 So of all things to do after twenty years in 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.360 a convent, they went some suit chopping. I mean, most 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.959 of my body hadn't seen the son in twenty years. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.280 And there I was going to get a swimming suit, 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:24.040 and I was just so embarrassed and like, I wouldn't 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.080 let her come into the dressing room with me. And anyway, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.320 we found a swimming suit that fit end and brought 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.560 her home. Mary had her own room, and even though 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.959 so much was new, new mattress, new swimsuit, new bedroom, 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.840 she still automatically woke up at four or forty every morning. 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:43.280 It was like she was still in sync with the 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.640 community she had left as an MC. She felt that 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.760 sense of community from the moment she woke up. But 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:54.360 now early in the morning she just lay there quietly alone. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.720 She might even go back to sleep. And she liked 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.280 that too. No l was going to ring, that was 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.120 going to force me out of bed and onto my knees. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.040 That was really nice. I could choose what I wanted 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:13.840 to get up. First thing each morning, Mary went to 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:20.680 her sister's pool and swam. It felt luxurious, It felt free. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.600 You can take off the habit and grow your hair 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:31.120 and start walking around like a regular person. But inside, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.760 being a missionary of charity leaves a very, very very 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.040 deep mark. And for me, I've been there for twenty 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:46.000 years and so deeply immersed. Separating wasn't just simply a 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:56.680 matter of of leaving from a cocoa punch. And I 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.639 heard radio, this is the Turning America Lands Part ten. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:19.200 Out there the world had changed since Mary Johnson became 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.799 a missionary of charity in the late seventies. Some things 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:24.800 she had a reference point for, but a lot of 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.720 it was completely foreign. Pumping your own gas going to 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.840 be a t m using a computer. One time, my 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.840 niece made popcorn in the microwave, and I thought the 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.440 house was going to explode because I had no idea 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.760 what that was. I had no idea these noises. Popcorn 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.680 in the microwave was a revelation. When she left the order, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.080 a sister gave her four German marks, the equivalent of 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.480 a little more than two hundred dollars for her twenty years. 0:03:56.160 --> 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 --> 0:04:09.160 of services. Oh my gosh, talk about a minimum wage 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.800 a year, eleven dollars a year. Mary still trusted in God, 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.440 but that wasn't going to pay the bills. One of 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.719 her first jobs was at J. C. Penny in December, 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.080 the Christmas rush. I was used to to silence and prayer, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.039 and here it was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.960 Frosty the Snowman playing all the time. And it was 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.239 all these people with credit cards buying gift after gift, 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.640 and a lot of the stuff in the gift department 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.839 were useless Chatski kind of things, you know, these little figurines. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:49.880 I couldn't figure out why people wanted little figurines. I 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.000 was used to repairing broken toys to give to kids 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.800 who would otherwise have nothing on Christmas. It was strange. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.880 It was strange for me. Mary still remembers the first 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.200 time she went out to eat in a restaurant. Her 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.880 sister took the whole family out to dinner. I was 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.880 faced there with this menu, with all these choices. It 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.279 took me forever to make up my mind. I didn't 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.039 know if I would ever again, and you know, have 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.400 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 --> 0:05:23.000 getting kind of nervous with me because I wasn't making 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.119 up my mind, and the waiter had to come back, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:32.320 and then eventually I ordered something. As Mary mapped out 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.960 her new life, her mind wandered back to Tom Father. 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.680 Tom had made the thought of leaving possible. He had 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.480 helped her imagine a life outside the convent. They pictured 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.359 waking up together, making coffee, holding hands in public without 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.760 guilt or shame. He'd given her a taste of a 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.560 fuller life, and she knew that's what God wanted for her. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.520 When Mary asked the MCS for ex claustration that year 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.320 of contemplation before officially leaving the order, she had called Tom. 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.599 He had asked her, does this mean you would consider 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.200 marrying me? She couldn't tell if he meant it. It 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.440 was such an awkward proposal, but she needed time. Now 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.880 she was in Texas, out of her sorry and away 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.520 from the convent. So at a certain point I knew 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.560 I was ready to talk to him, and that if 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:23.120 he was going to ask, actually, really directly, if I 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.560 would consider marrying him, I was ready to entertain that notion, 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.640 so she called him. It was the first time they talked, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.480 and she left, but once she got him on the phone, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.200 it was clear Tom had decided to remain a priest. 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.320 I definitely had to honor that. That's that's what he wants, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:53.680 That's that's the way it is. And yeah, how did 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.680 it feel to hear that? I was prepared to hear that, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.400 you know it it was. It was kind of sad, 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.839 you know, it kind of shut one door for me. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.760 There's very often even if something said, if it comes 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.760 to a certain sense of clarity, it's a kind of 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:17.120 a gift. I appreciated the clarity that was. That was good, 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.080 and she moved on, still trying to hear what God 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:31.040 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 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.960 to make money or learning how to use technology. She 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:38.440 had to face the way the m c s had 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.640 changed her internally. She told me about a time she 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.120 was staying at a religious center. She had moved out 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.480 of her sister's house after a couple of months, and 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.440 she found the center with sabbatical programming and wellness treatment 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.640 for clergy. It was around this time that she noticed 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.400 how muddled her emotional responses were. I was talking with 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.280 the sister who was in charge of the place, and 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.760 it was some thing very sad or upsetting. I don't 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.920 really remember what I was talking to her about, but 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.680 I remember that I was. I was very sad, and 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.120 I felt like I wanted to cry about. What came 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.360 out was these giggles and this laughter. It was like, 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.400 I don't know how to express my emotions properly anymore, 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.679 because missionaries of charity are not supposed to be sad. 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.480 You're supposed to be cheerful all the time. You're supposed 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:37.720 to smile. And I had just been disconnected from what 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.160 I might be feeling inside. How to express that I 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.840 didn't know, And so whenever there was something said, I 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.720 was like laughing instead of crying. I think that one 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.640 of the big things that I've been working on for 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:58.240 many decades now is trying to reconnect my emotions and 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.160 their expression, trying to reconnect my mind and my body, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.920 trying to be fully connected. I have been consciously working 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:11.079 on that. In a way, she had to relearn how 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.280 to think and how to feel. God had called her out, 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:15.960 but in the real world, it would take time to 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.079 shift her mindset. She had to untangle guilt and questions 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.880 about faith, come to terms with her relationship with Mother Teresa. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:30.360 There is no one moment, no final epiphany. Mary was 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.800 at that center for priests and nuns when Mother Teresa died. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.040 I found out from one of them who had heard 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:42.440 it on television, and it was it was a shock. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:48.120 It was very hard to mourn Mother Teresa's passing alone 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:57.000 without the sisters. Why well, you imagine someone who's very 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.480 close to you in your family, and perhaps you're own mother, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.680 and when she dies, you can't be with the family. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.319 You have to be off on your own, by yourself. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.120 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, 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.920 so when mother died, even more so I never managed 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.400 to get through. A few days after Mother Teresa died, 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.439 there is a memorial celebration at a cathedral in Houston. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.800 Mary went and sat in the back. In his homily, 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.280 the bishops spoke about how he met Mother Teresa once 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.679 when her plane had a layover in Houston, and he 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.960 spent about half an hour with her, and there I was, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.559 who had known and followed and loved her for twenty years. 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.440 In the back, she knelt in the pew and cried, 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.040 and it all felt so strange. They had a big 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.520 picture of her up at the front, and after nearly 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.040 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 0:11:05.400 --> 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 --> 0:11:15.200 for me. Of course, my last conversation with mother had 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.360 been very, very difficult, so that's also kind of hard 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:27.240 knowing that somehow I had disappointed her. That feeling did 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:53.760 not go away easily. Over the course of your life, 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:55.720 there are times when you have to leave things behind, 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:02.800 maybe a relationship, a job, your family, home. Leaving the 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.440 m c S is all of those at once, and 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.920 that's just the first step. Then you have to make 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.440 your own way. I mean, the first couple of weeks 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.320 you're just happy to be back with great meals and 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.440 a great bed and you know, incredibly loving people around you. 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.280 But for me, the other piece of the pain is 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.120 you're gone for so long and you're trying to come 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:33.080 back into your family and so many years of their 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.280 connections and growth and life you are not a part of. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.440 Sue Webber is the sister who ran the AIDS hospice 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.040 in San Francisco. Even now, for me, there's elements, and 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.120 they're not good or bad. I think they're just I 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.240 think it will always be that way where you're you know, 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.559 you're a part of the family and you're super connected. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.200 But there's an element that there's so much that you 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.960 missed in that journey that you're a lot of time 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.680 was on the outside looking in. People don't really know 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.840 what you've been through. How could they? How do you 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.720 describe what it's really like inside a closed community led 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.560 by celebrity sat How do you get past people's assumptions. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.120 When Sue first left, she still wore her sorry. She 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.800 was still weighing what to do, go back to the 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.520 m CS or leave. She'd moved to her hometown in 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.800 Pennsylvania to live with her parents. She says, when you 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.760 wear the white and blue sorry, everyone notices you. You know, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:33.800 people would stop you on the street and be like, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:39.640 can I touch you? It's like people didn't see her. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.120 They saw what she wore and what that represented. They 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.360 saw a Mother Teresa. The Mother Teresa they thought they knew, 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:48.960 and that got in the way of her decision making. 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.760 I couldn't come to any clarity unless I took off 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.800 the habit and was seen. So she wrote to the 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.840 m c's and got permission to wear street clothes. Sue's 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.800 sister Joan, has been out of the MCS for more 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.920 than three decades. She still has a picture of Mother 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:11.360 Teresa in her office. I love her to death, and 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.960 she is I consider I have certain saints in heaven 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.080 that I love and read about and call out to 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.680 and you know, ask for divine intervention many times. She's 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.280 one of them. So it was weird for her when 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.600 she was teaching a religion class for kids and a 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.960 Mother Teresa impersonator came by. She puts an outfit on 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.160 that looks like Mother Teresa's outfit, and then she like 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.320 hangs laundry, and then she kind of tells the story 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.560 of Mother Teresa's life. I don't know, it's really weird. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.320 It's just you look at her and you're like, I 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.480 can't even explain it. It's like, you know what the 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.080 demeanor of of a Mother Teresa none is you know 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.080 what it looks like and what they do and really 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.000 do you know? You know, you're sitting there and you're like, Okay, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.680 that's not true, that's not true. You know what I mean. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.920 It's like they try to understand by her readings or 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.040 her or things that have and written about her, but 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.720 they really don't know, and so it wasn't there. That's 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.680 all I used to saying. It's weird for me to 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:11.960 watch someone portray mother Teresa. Sue and Joan both new 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.200 Mother Teresa. It's a comfort that they can talk about 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.520 their time in the missionaries of charity and they get it. 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.040 It's part of what makes them close. There's not many 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.400 people that understand the missionaries of charity, and no matter 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.800 how many times you try to explain it, a lot 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.960 of people look at you like you're weird because of 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.080 the penances that you did and didn't understand where we 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.040 were coming from when we did the penances. So so 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:34.960 I don't share my I really do not share my 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.200 story because people can't relate. If you haven't had the experience, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:47.280 you can't relate. Mary Johnson doesn't usually tell people she 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.080 was an m C. It's just easier not to go 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:55.120 there where It usually comes up actually as people will 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.400 ask me where are you from, because I still have 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.720 a slight accident in my voice, and I'll say, well, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.960 you know, I I was born in Michigan. Um kind 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.360 of grew up in Texas as you don't sound like that, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.720 And then you know, eventually I get around to saying 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.280 something very vague, like, well, I lived for a number 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.160 of years in an international community where we all spoke English, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.440 but hardly anyone as their first language, and I had 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.239 to develop a way of speaking so they could understand 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:29.680 me with clear vowels and clear consonants, and they'll look 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.800 at me with this big question mark on on their faces. 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.560 And sometimes I just have to explain what I did 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.520 with my life for twenty years. And when I do, 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.840 people who aren't Catholic, they say, oh, what a wonderful 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.240 thing to have done with two decades of your life. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:50.760 And tell me about mother Teresa. What was she really like? Nearly, 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.360 without exception Catholics, they say why did you leave? Because 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.760 there are some acceptable reasons for leaving in some that aren't. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.160 I had so much shame. Kelly Dunham, the former sister 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.760 who's a stand up comic. I felt rejected, like Jesus 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.800 gave up on her offer to give her life to him, 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.160 And now here she was on the outside with no money. 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.760 And I really didn't have any skills. I didn't have 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.320 any more skills that were applicable to the American workplace. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.680 Like I was two years old and I had almost 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.320 a four year gap in employment history. That was hard 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.640 to explain, you know. And I remember I had a 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.119 composition notebook that had like all the jobs I was 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.000 applying to, and I'd cut out a New Yorker cartoon 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:38.960 and it was a guy doing a job interview, and 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:40.920 he said, am I a team player? Are you kidding? 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:42.880 I was in a cult? And I had crossed out 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:48.400 cult and put convent uh. And that cartoon actually helped 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:53.240 me a lot, because I felt so alone. When she 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.840 first left, she was embarrassed about leaving, but over time 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.240 she feared being judged for joining in the first place. Yeah, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:04.880 I was more closeted about it. I didn't know anybody 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.679 else who was an ex nun. And then as I 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.639 started going to something called the Conference for Catholic Lesbians, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.320 and the whole thing was full of X nons. Kelly 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.560 was done to learn just how many lesbian x nuns 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.320 there were. They had pool parties and prayed the Rosary, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:19.800 which I thought was like such a great thing to 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:21.600 do at a pool party. And then at some point 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.840 everyone took off all the clothes and went swimming, and 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.840 I was like, this is great. This is than the convent, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:35.119 this is really great. When Colette Livermore left the m 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.320 c s and went home in Australia, mother Teresa sent 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.600 her letters asking her to come back. She talked little 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:46.639 cards inside them. Three times she sent me, uh God, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:51.119 depicting a crossed figure. In the illustration, Jesus was covered 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.840 in wounds and bleeding, with his hands tied, with her 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.360 riding at the bottom, saying be the one. But Collette 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.200 didn't go back. It's edge pursued what she dreamed of 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.760 as a teenager. She went to medical school. Most of 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.600 her classmates were thirteen years younger than she was. She 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.399 says in med school she learned to think again, to doubt, 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.439 to analyze the evidence rather than to give unquestioning assent 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.240 to what she was told. But even as her world 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.560 view shifted, she still felt the shadow of her eleven 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.080 years as an MC. In med school, she avoided telling 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.000 people she'd been a sister with mother Teresa. They treated 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.639 her differently if they knew, and instead of volunteering for procedures, 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.560 she'd find herself hanging back hoping she wouldn't be selected. 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:37.680 My confidence was gone. I was very unassertive as well. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.040 You know in classes, who got all these young people 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.040 around you bringing with self confidence and they want to 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.520 have a go as a doctor. For a while she 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.560 worked in Northern Australia and every week or two she'd 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.760 fly two hundred and eighty miles on a mail carrier 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.160 to a remote settlement and treat the Aboriginal community there. 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:03.440 Sometimes Collet work alongside EMC sisters. On a rare occasion, 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.879 when Colett got a chance to eat a meal with them, 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.479 they asked her why she left. She explained, and Collett 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.119 found that they too had experiences when superiors told them 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.760 to refuse help to the sick. She was relieved it 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:21.480 validated her experience. Collett's professional life was fulfilling. Her work 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:23.359 as a doctor was busy and she got a chance 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.520 to travel and experience cultures that were new to her. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.720 Her life was full, but the empty imprint was there. Well, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:38.439 I haven't married, I would have liked to have. I 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:43.199 was really really wanting to find a life partner, but 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.760 it just it just didn't happen. Do you think the 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.600 missionaries of charity had affected some of that? Was it 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.000 timing or also just kind of it took a while 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.520 to break out of that mindset, do you think? Or Oh? 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.240 I think it was both. I know I did want 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.560 a partner and to have kids because the biological clock 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.800 was ticking, I had very poor self confidence. I mean, 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.960 lots of people leave the comment and find partners the 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.320 next day, so I don't know what it is with me. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:21.240 That's what I chused to wonder. But yeah, I didn't anyway, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.960 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 --> 0:21:32.359 blah and so. But I got over that in a while. 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.639 I thought, you know, if it happens, it happens. But 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:46.040 never did. Oh, everybody gets a lonely Sometimes I'd get 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:51.239 hope from friendships, and I find hoping. You know, my 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.119 nephews had a new little girl. She's beautiful. I've got 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.800 a great nieces and I find a lot of solace 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.479 nature and beautiful things when I go bush walking and 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:10.720 seeing flowers and beautiful vistas of the sea. All that 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.840 makes me feel happy. You get those moments where you're 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:23.280 just there and it's everything. The most important thing is love. 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:28.200 Everything you can do to strengthen that is the most 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:37.800 valuable thing. I would have been happy to date there. 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.879 Nobody was interested in me. I really stuck out in 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.639 Southeast Texas. You know, I wasn't really kind of dating 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:49.960 material also in the beginning, and I was still trying 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.680 to figure things out for a while. Mary Johnson toyed 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.480 with the idea of starting her own community, one for 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.560 women and men, open to many faiths, even those with 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.280 no faith. It would be only the good parts of 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.359 the MCS, a life focused on love and serving the poor. 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.560 She ended up working a number of different jobs. She 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.320 ironed clothes, worked as a receptionist in a doctor's office, 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.520 and as a liturgical director at a church. She went 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.080 back to college and then went on to graduate school 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:23.080 to study writing, and that's where she met Luke and 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:28.080 we just had an immediate connection. About three years after 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.159 she left the m c S, Mary was at a 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.560 ten day writing residency. On her first day, she was 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.840 overwhelmed and intimidated the people she met, pontificated about authors 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.680 she'd never heard of. At lunch, a charming but shy 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:46.600 fellow residence that opposite her, they started talking. Luke was 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:50.119 a doctor, but he was studying poetry. He'd gotten frustrated 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.160 with parts of being a physician, like dealing with insurance companies, 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:55.560 and he felt like studying poetry was a way to 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:59.720 restore his soul. And I wouldn't even say that we 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.520 ever really dated. It was this one week together. I 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:08.040 went back to Texas and uh, you know, within a 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:10.640 couple of months he was inviting me to move in, 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:16.720 and that was it. Mary says Luke was a good listener, creative, quirky, 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.359 the type of person who wants to keep growing, always 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:23.640 improving with time, getting deeper better. Somehow they could talk 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:27.080 for hours. Moving in with Luke for the first time 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:29.640 put on display how many habits from MC life were 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:33.320 still a part of Mary. She apologized constantly for things 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.240 that didn't matter, because that's what she did for twenty years. 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:39.840 If you broke a plate as a missionary of charity, 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:41.800 you had to kneel down and kiss the floor and 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:45.919 confess your fault for having busted displayed, and so you know, 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:50.040 I was apologizing. I was asking permission for things that 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:52.760 nobody asks permission for. You know, it wouldn't be all 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:56.080 right if I have a cup of tea. Now we're 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:59.320 you know, just ridiculous things. But it took a long 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:01.919 time for a lot those things to fall away for me. 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:06.280 Getting closer with Luke allowed to process some of her 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:09.840 darker times with the MCS. She says he recognized what 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:13.159 she was struggling with, partly because of his past experience. 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:18.000 In college, he worked on a crisis intervention hotline and 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:21.240 he had also been on a board of an abused 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.600 women's shelter, so he was very familiar with the cycle 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:30.960