Global Perspectives

It’s the simple truths that you want to watch out for. They are the ones that can ambush you, unsettle patterns and leave you reeling. I stumbled upon one of these truths. Or rather it found me. Admittedly, I had put myself in harm’s way by going on a retreat with the Sisters of St Andrew community. I go there every few months for a bit of silence and solitude. I was after calm though, not disruption. But I spent the first day prowling around this single uneasy question; ‘why do I feel like my life has not gone according to plan, like I have missed my calling?’ As I went to see ‘my nun’, Sr Marie Christine, I had a sense of reticence. I had no achievements or milestones to boast of. No major crisis to deflect attention from why I felt stuck. I didn’t want to be exposed as the servant in the ancient parable of the talents; the one who had not taken any risks with his master’s treasure but simply returned that which he’d been given. Disappointing. The feeling wasn’t...