A hidden life revealed

I have been spending Tuesdays and Thursdays at the library the past couple of weeks because I don't start teaching again until February. I meant to use this time for research, writing, and planning next semester, but I've mostly used it for researching our Rome trip and other diversions. For instance, last week I was actually looking for a book about ecocriticism, but I happened to pick up another interesting read off the library shelf: Monica Baldwin's memoir I Leap Over the Wall. It's the story of a British woman of aristocratic background who leaves convent life after spending 28 years as a nun. She entered the convent (which she doesn't name, but a little internet research reveals she was Augustinian cannoness at St. Monica's Priory in Hertfordshire) in 1914 during the beginning of one war and returns to the world in 1941, the beginning of the second world war. It's a fascinating peek at the changes that occurred in those 28 years and the impressions of someone who was removed from worldly life at a time of great social upheaval.

Baldwin makes the obvious comparison of her to Rip Van Winkle a number of times. She notes changes such as wartime privations and increased materialism. She entered the convent as WWI was beginning and leaves as WWII is ramping up.  Some of the notable changes: Ladies' dress: panty hose, underwear, bras. Her sister picks her up outside the convent and takes her shopping first thing.  She writes that all of London seemed poor and working class, no more assistance in the shops, no more glamorous gowns. Women were smoking on the trains.  Music was also quite different.  Interestingly, providentially, one of the first songs she hears on the radio is one of the last songs she ever listened to - Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.  

Why did she leave the convent? It does not seem that she lost her faith, but rather that she doubted her vocation. For a decade after she realized she had followed her own will into the convent instead of God's will, she lived in distress and then began the process of getting permission to give up her vows. Her reasons for leaving are simply that she was not suited for convent life and that she had to go. I thought it admirable that she doesn't dwell too closely on her own interior struggle. Several remarks about her faith make it seem that she did not lose it, but just realized she didn't have a call to consecrated life.  She doesn't complain about convent life or other sisters, although her description of the habit she wore does sound complex - the headdress sounds like a torture device. But the simple collation described in the refectory sounds delicious - whole grain dark bread, vegetable soup, figs or dates, all eaten in silence.  She does describe a couple of convent conflicts - arguments over opening windows - "Fresh Air Friends" vs "Fug defenders" -and over the volume of plainchant. But she writes a good deal of praise for the prayers and music, including describing the divine offices - the order's raison d'etre.

Much of the book describes Baldwin's struggles to find a job. She stays with an elderly aunt in Sussex for some time and then with her uncle, one time Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.  The names of the ancestral homes are so lovely -  Astley in Worcestershire, Bredon Hill, Woodbury, Abberley - the Malverns,  Hallow, Grimley, Shrawley, the Severn River.  Her immediate family seems unable or unwilling to take her in. I am guessing her parents had died, although I don't remember reading about them dying - admittedly, I skimmed the book to get through it in a couple hours.

Her skills are not very marketable - painting illuminations, researching St. Augustine and his time, administering simple home remedies as an infirmarian. She does not want to be a teacher or be around a bunch of girls. And she mentions that she avoids tiny women for some reason.  But she does try out several jobs - as a garden worker or "land girl," a factory girl at an ammunition factory, a blue print designer, a canteen worker - until she finally finds some satisfaction as a librarian.
The dream of the Cornwall Cottage

At one point she stays with two elderly women Barbara and Gay - grandmothers who smoke and cuss call her immature, naive, try to teach her about life.  Later she meets some "Buchmanites" who were early evangelicals who take her in and give her encouragement.   She finds London smothering and longs for the country, "ordained by God" for healing the soul. This line resonated with me, as city life often gets wearisome.  She has a dream of a tiny cottage in Cornwall with a garden against a cliff, which becomes her goal.

Eventually, she becomes an assistant librarian with Royal Medical Society. In this capacity, one evening she happens to have dinner with Lord Dawson and is introduced to spies - perhaps obliquely invited to be one. She lectures Dawson about the history and love of Christ that led to the building of monasteries and the blessings of a hidden life. She offers a convincing apology for convent life even as she leaves it behind when she describes seeing all souls as cells in the mystical body of Christ with the purpose of carrying on his passion. We have our own individual life but contribute to the unity of the body of Christ. "The whole Christ lives in me" in the flesh - convents devote all to Christ to have more unity with his heart, in union in contemplation. Their goal is to bring Him to the world in prayer; they are like the force that created and preserved the world and is refused nothing by God - a miraculous being. Dawson in response to her descriptions offers her a job of developing a welfare society, but she declines.

Although she enjoys the job as a librarian, her eyes are no longer good. Her doctor tells she was well preserved and wasted her life for the 18 years she thought about leaving the convent. She talks about the experience of envisioning adventures and growing in humility during that time, learning to make room for God. She continues to be disgusted by materialism.

In the end, Monica finds her tiny cottage in Cornwall that she dreamed about. Her conversations with another uncle about convent life and perhaps frequent questions about why she left inspire her to write her memoirs. She must have become something of a hermit, living in Cornwall with her cat and writing. She published this book in 1949, then wrote a novel Called and Chosen that came out in 1957, shortly after A Nun's Story by Katheryn Hulme, which was more popular.  I think she also wrote another memoir. 

The couple of hours I spent reading this were a delightful glimpse of another world and of another soul seeking to follow her vocation without road signs. Perhaps not the best use of my time, but the hours were not wasted.