Triptych: A Memoir
An Ex-Nun's Three-Paneled Personal Journey through Spiritual, Cultural, and Socioeconomic Change from the 1950s to the 21st Century
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The ‘70s continued and melted into the ‘80s, and I entered into my private winter of discontent. Something is wrong with me, I decided. If I want the common experience of marriage and children, why do I not pursue it? Why do I lack any genuine interest in acquiring possessions that give other people lasting pleasure? Why do so many of my perceptions emphasize what’s missing rather than elicit joy in what is? Why do I see so much of life through a dark lens? Why am I not happy? I needed a therapist.
Having a therapist was quite fashionable in the
How many sessions will I require?
Why do you want to talk about time?
Do you consider my past the source of my problems?
Do you? Does something about it trouble you now?
Is this topic too mundane or boring to talk about here?
You want to censor yourself. Why, I wonder.
You’re the therapist, damn it! Tell me!
Hm…m.
As the weeks and months accumulated, I gradually opened up and surrendered my efforts to control both myself and the direction of our sessions. These get-togethers became the main event in my week and were sorely missed during those weeks when my work required attendance at meetings in distant cities. After some time in individual sessions, my therapist suggested that I join an interactive group that he facilitated. To share with one another in this diverse group came people in business, the arts, and social work; men and women, married and homosexual. Within the confines of a therapy group that knew one another only by first names, I found a level of openness and inquiry, of insight and challenge, that broadened my knowledge and acceptance of myself. I could be sad or joyful, angry or calm, mean or compassionate, fearing neither rejection nor reprisal.
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About the Book
In this intimate memoir an ex-nun records her three-paneled personal journey through spiritual, cultural, and socioeconomic change from the 1950s to the 21st century. She asks: What impact did growing up poor, urban, and Catholic have on my development? What influences led me to walk the less-traveled road of convent life and what propelled me to leave it? How did I get here from there?
The book begins with the author’s first visit to her childhood home five years after her religious profession. Intimately detailed flashbacks reveal both glimpses of her family life and her preparation for religious vows and educational ministry. The reader learns the “secret” of what she wore under a nun’s religious habit, the daily routine of convent life, evolvement of her spiritual understandings, and the joyful challenge of teaching.
The second section concentrates on the 1960s and the author’s participation in its core events that include the Civil Rights March on Washington, the changes in Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council, an emerging consciousness of her own sexuality and the role of women in American society, and her departure from convent life.
The final section offers highlights of her experiences during the final thirty years of the twentieth century—coping with sexual and career issues, experiencing corporate downsizing, teaching bankers in
Interspersed with poems that relate to the content and concluding with an epilogue of essays that comment on recurrent themes within the narrative, this memoir offers a unique insight into the mind and heart of a contemporary woman.
About the Author
MARGARET LYNCH’S lengthy career in academic and business settings involved not only teaching and administration but also writing, editing, development and marketing of educational materials. Since retirement she has focused her attention on her evolution as a creative writer. Her poems range in style and content from the prose poem “Social Life” published in
Ms. Lynch made her inauspicious debut in
The author holds a B.A. in English from the College of St. Elizabeth, NJ, an M.A. in English from