Catherine Coldstream’s decade-long stay in a monastery is a deeply personal journey from a chaotic childhood to a place of calm and contemplation. It’s also a suspenseful story about the inner workings of a silent religious order where members bully one another, exhibit pettiness, and play political games. At times, it felt “cult-like,” Coldstream said.
The author’s prose takes on a quiet beauty in her descriptions of the sparse and plain monastic life. She described her room, or “cell,” as it was called, as “pale, dusky luminescence.” Though this religious home was lonely due to the daily solitude required, it was also “lovely,” she writes. “[T]here was a palpable cushion of love around you, one that came from prayer.”
The reasons leading up to Coldstream choice of such a vocation are addressed in the opening prologue right after she’s seen running from the monastery, on foot and with great haste. Though she recounts the action as if in a dream, she’s describing a real-life departure from the place she called home for 10 years. She describes Akenside Priory (names are changed) as “the towering house that rises like a fortress against the sky,” a surprisingly ominous description.
A Father Connection
Key to the story is Coldstream’s early life before joining the order. Born in London, Coldstream was a child of “ill matched” parents; she and her two siblings were raised in a bohemian style. She adored her father, but because of his chaotic marriage with her mother, Coldstream felt she was “in a firing line, ducking and dodging” trying to keep peace in the family.At 24, just after burying her father, she, her mother, and her siblings went their separate ways. Coldstream pursued music, literature, and choral singing. She was also looking for a connection with her father since, as she wrote, “a world without Dad in it was inconceivable.”
While on a train to visit friends, Coldstream sat next to a woman “dressed in grey” who would be the catalyst to her decision to pursue the monastic life. Sister Else was a soothing confidant on this ride with her radiance and warmth. Upon exiting the train, the nun gave her a blessing and a piece of paper with her phone number. Intrigued, Coldstream researched the monastic life and felt pulled towards the Carmelites located in England for being “radical and ancient.” It offered community, answers to her spiritual questions, and structure.
In each revealing chapter, we get deeper and deeper into the function of the monastery. Here, she had a schedule, rituals, routines, and time to deepen her faith in the Carmelite society. She was giving her life all up to God, remaining ever mindful of being his representative, and accepting any disappointments or unfulfilled promises as the work of the Holy Spirit.
Turmoil in the Order
One difficulty arose when the newly elected Mother Superior asked the group to call her “Sister,” rather than what she considered the childish “mother.” Some bristled at this change, seen as disrespectful to the Carmelite tradition. More turmoil followed with members took sides and insulted one another. Coldstream witnessed negative aspects of her fellow sisters she never saw coming. After enduring a traumatic and disturbing event, the author doubted her future with the order, calling on prayer, pleading for answers to the contradiction she was experiencing. She was unsure whether she could continue in this life.The author’s writing is never as strong as when we read about her heartbreaking realization that for her own health and safety, she must leave. The internal and mental wrestling she undergoes is powerful, and we feel her sadness at seeing that her devotion to God was more punishing than joyful.
Coldstream’s portrayal of monastic life and the society that lives within its walls is disturbing. Reaching her decision, she calls upon a Psalm that comes to her in the throes of this agony, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell at the sea’s furthest end, even there, thy hand shall lead me, thy right hand shall hold me fast.”
It’s clear to Coldstream and her readers what must happen next. Her departure makes for a scene from a Hollywood movie, where kind strangers come to the aid of the solitary figure that appears on their doorstep.
The author carries no regrets or bitterness from the experience. She writes that the aftermath of leaving filled her with “guilt and euphoria.” Escaping the “mental and emotional” pressures of the cloister, she must remake herself for a life out in the world. It’s in the acknowledgements where we read that she returned to her family, and in her contemplative style, is thankful for the experience and the deepening of her own relationship with God.
Since leaving the order, Coldstream has pursued higher education, and now teaches theology, philosophy and ethics. When asked if the monastery life breeds this kind of dysfunction, Coldstream replied that the breakdown was more in the leadership than in the Carmelite traditions.
