I vow to catch up on my bloggage. I am hampered by the fact that I have..er..less than 40,000 words to write by 5/15 (the exact number I have left remains a closely guarded secret lest my editor reads this post) and that, very inconveniently, my next novel has clicked into place in my head. Not that I’ve heard anything on the first effort, mind you. But this one – a story I thought of a year ago, probably, and even wrote a few chapters of – has taken a slightly different shape, has definitely taken on a different narrator, different person and voice, but all in a way that threatens to take over my brain.

Which, I suppose, is simply more motivation to get the less-than-40,000 words finished, write the three pamphlets I’m contracted to do, and then move on. But then it will be summer and…

Anyway. Today I stacked up all the books I’ve half-finished and then the books that publishers and authors have kindly sent me for review, and it was all sort of depressing. Finish one book before you attempt another, should be my new rule.

Today, I discovered a "Blog" category in my favorites, full of interesting links I evidently never got around to mentioning. Here’s one, from A Blog by the Sea a few days ago, relating a story about the Refoundation of the Lisieux Carmel:

The work is still ongoing.  The old brick cloister, seen in the pages linked above, is now joined to a comfortable new wing shown on the architect’s website also linked above.  Pierre Buraglio’s work is described by La-Croix as a play on "the pale stone of the ground, the light wood of a large cross behind the rough concrete altar, and golden light produced by the stained glass."

Naturally, so much change was a major event for the affected Carmelite nuns.  "We could live in this convent for decades without anything changing, but today the world turns very quickly, and we must adapt", said Sister Marie of the Redemption, 86 years old, quoted in the La-Croix article.  She entered here in 1942, and made profession in the hands of Mother Agnes, the older sister of St. Thérèse, who died in 1951!   Before Vatican II, Carmelite nuns never left. "Even the dentist was required to come to the carmel!" she said.  However, today, the sisters drive cars to run their errands.

To plan the project, eight nuns from different parts of France, and from different Carmelite backgrounds, came together for 9 months at the carmel de Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor), described by one of them "as for a birth."  They invented from day to day, working out the project.  Some were accustomed to a city monastery with a grill, while others were accustomed to an open setting in a forest.  At Easter, 2001, they again came together for 3 months at the Carmel in Caen, spending every other day at the Lisieux Carmel.  In September, 2001, the 12 nuns at Lisieux and 5 from the original Saint-Brieuc group agreed to  merge to form one community at the new Lisieux foundation. 

In 2003, they received a new prioress, whose work has included listening to the difficulties faced by the nuns as they endured the unsettling changes.  Sister Marie spoke of the Saint-Brieuc group’s previous moves from their original homes to Saint-Brieuc and later to Caen as "an experience of poverty, because a Carmelite nun is not accustomed to being uprooted."  By 2003, the new prioress said, ""There were sufferings to take into account, because what the sisters had experienced for a year and half had been very shaking."  Then, they had to decide how to live in the new buildings.  The order encouraged them to completely change the furniture of their cells.

However, once the new installation was completed, to their surprise, 5 new novices came to their door. That carmel had not seen more than 5 novices in the previous 10 years.  The present prioress, Sister Dominique, said, "That assures us that God wills it."