Symbiosis …

… Writing in the Sand: The Poetry of Doubt and Faith by Christian Wiman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

When I was in grade school, during the summer, I used to visit Eden Hall, the convent where the nuns who taught us lived, to visit my sixth grade teacher, Mother Elizabeth Holmes. One day when I visited her,  I told her I was having doubts about the faith. She said to me, “Do you think that none of us in this convent has doubts? Doubt accompanies faith.” Then she gave me a suggestion, which she admitted might  sound silly, since, after all, I had these doubts. She suggested that I pray, that either there was someone listening or there was not. I have been praying ever since. Eden Hall us gone now, its grounds a park. But many years after that conversation, I reviewed a book about it. Mother Holmes was mentioned in it. I got in touch with the author and she sent me Mother Holmes’s email address. And so, near the end of her life, we reconnected. I have always considered that a great. She was one of the most important persons in my life.