{"id":4311,"date":"2012-06-28T11:13:23","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T11:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/?p=4311"},"modified":"2012-06-28T18:19:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T18:19:24","slug":"the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html","title":{"rendered":"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>By Corinna Nicolaou<\/em><\/p>\n

Chapter One<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2005, when I moved to a small town in the Pacific Northwest from the San Francisco Bay area, the pace of my daily life came to a screeching halt, but the activity in my mind kept its old furious tempo so that I suffered from a psychological whiplash that left me agitated and depressed. I wanted to get things done, but a list of errands\u2014grocery store, post office, library, etc.\u2014that had taken an entire afternoon in my old life now took precisely 1.5 hours and then I was back at home. I was like Fred Flintstone when his car gets lifted off the ground and it\u2019s just his feet running at a break neck speed.<\/p>\n

The silence and stillness were maddening to me, I wanted to turn up the music and run around in circles in my living room\u2014anything to get back to my old comfort zone of hustle and bustle. I won\u2019t blame the city for having kept me so tightly wound, because plenty of individuals cultivate an inner peace in an urban environment, but for me personally, the city\u2019s endless distractions were the perfect companion to my inclination to run from myself. I was alone and quiet only in little bite-sized portions. The kicker is that I had been longing for this dramatic change of pace, and now that it was upon me I couldn\u2019t adjust. Constant activity is a much stronger drug than I had realized. I was desperate. I looked around for inspiration from others whose lives had similarly shifted from the fast lane to the slow, and I found it in several books by author Kathleen Norris, a poet who moved from New York City to a tiny town in South Dakota in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Among other subjects, she writes about the deepening spirituality brought about by her move, helped along by several visits to monasteries. At one point she chronicles her stay of more than a year in a Benedictine monastery. I did not grow up as a churchgoer and have always regarded spirituality a bit like ghosts\u2014a fascinating phenomenon of which I have no first-hand experience.\u00a0 I understood that if I was to thrive\u2014or just survive\u2014in this new life, I would need to equip myself with an understanding of something greater. I would need to find a way to be comfortable with the silence, to welcome it, even, and to grow from it. Monastics are experts in solitude, so I was hoping time spent among them would provide me with some valuable lessons.<\/p>\n

READ MORE!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Excerpt from Chapter Two<\/strong> by Corinna Nicolaou:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On the internet, I found a monastery within a manageable drive of my home. Like the one in which Norris stayed, it is Benedictine, a Roman Catholic order that follows the rule of St. Benedict. However, this one is all female (the \u201cmonks\u201d are nuns) and is also a…\u00a0 Continued!<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corinna Nicolaou Chapter One In 2005, when I moved to a small town in the Pacific Northwest from the San Francisco Bay area, the pace of my daily life came to a screeching halt, but the activity in my mind kept its old furious tempo so that I suffered from a psychological whiplash that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3083,3119,3122,156,3121,3120],"class_list":["post-4311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-stories","tag-corinna-nicolaou","tag-living-in-a-monastery","tag-our-lady-of-the-rock","tag-prayables","tag-religious-living","tag-the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl"],"yoast_head":"\nThe True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl - Prayables<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl - Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Corinna Nicolaou Chapter One In 2005, when I moved to a small town in the Pacific Northwest from the San Francisco Bay area, the pace of my daily life came to a screeching halt, but the activity in my mind kept its old furious tempo so that I suffered from a psychological whiplash that…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-28T11:13:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-28T18:19:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/06\/olr-entrance-300x194.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl - Prayables","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl - Prayables","og_description":"By Corinna Nicolaou Chapter One In 2005, when I moved to a small town in the Pacific Northwest from the San Francisco Bay area, the pace of my daily life came to a screeching halt, but the activity in my mind kept its old furious tempo so that I suffered from a psychological whiplash that…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html","og_site_name":"Prayables","article_published_time":"2012-06-28T11:13:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-06-28T18:19:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/06\/olr-entrance-300x194.jpg"}],"author":"Prayables","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html","name":"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl - Prayables","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/06\/olr-entrance-300x194.jpg","datePublished":"2012-06-28T11:13:23+00:00","dateModified":"2012-06-28T18:19:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/06\/olr-entrance-300x194.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/06\/olr-entrance-300x194.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/the-true-monastic-adventures-of-a-recovering-city-girl.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The True Monastic Adventures of A Recovering City Girl"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/","name":"Prayables","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107","name":"Prayables","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/author\/sdiamond"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4311"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4313,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions\/4313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}