​The bell for Vespers sounds, and I wait patiently for sister Agnes to help me make my way to the choir as she always does. I never tire of the beauty of the cloister as the sun begins to set. The time set aside for work after None is always best when the weather is fine and we carry our mending, or embroidery, or parchment and pens into the cloister walk. On my better days, I join in with the rest. On others, I nap, glad for the fresh air and the quiet company of my sisters.  

 

The pain in my back has been building all day, and I am grateful for sister’s steady arm and kind words as we make our way slowly from the cloister into the church. She helps me gently into my stall in the choir. I am relieved to take my familiar seat. 

 

I try to stand up with the others as the cantor intones the invitatory and the office begins.

 

The sisters across the choir begin:

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 “Make haste, O God, to deliver me…”

 

And all on my side respond:

 

“…make haste, O Lord, to help me…”

 

Pain now radiates up and down my back, and I decide to keep to my seat. I try to fill my lungs to sing, but the only sound I make is a cough. 

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“Make haste, O God, to deliver me.”

 

I have sung these opening words of the seventieth Psalm just about every evening of my life here. As a girl, I imagined God delivering me from a life of enclosure chosen for me by my parents. Now, with the wisdom of age and the lessons of pain, I know better. I pray for deliverance from my pain, and mercy does come from time to time. These are the good days, when I can stand and sing and join in the work in the refectory or garden. Other days are not as good. Maybe deliverance comes in small moments of grace. 

 

I reach for the orphrey I am embroidering, a welcome distraction from the pain searing my back. I have taught dozens of young nuns to create intricate patterns with needle and thread, and I have often had to push aside prideful thoughts about my own skill and the beauty of the work I am creating. But even as direct my soul to humility, I find comfort and joy in the repeated gestures of my art, its motions and rhythms in sync with the standing, sitting, and bowing of the of the community as we chant the psalms. Small moments of grace? 

 

 

My hands begin to tremble as the fourth psalm ends. My thimble drops to the floor and rolls out of sight and reach in the dark space under my feet…

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