Given that we were talking about the historical Jesus yesterday, this piece in the Utne Reader caught my eye …
What happens when you’re running a 14th century convent in Southern Spain that’s nearly broke? You could call up Jake and Elwood. Or, if you’re Mother Isabel and you run the show, you put a video on YouTube entitled “Why not be a barefoot Carmelite?” And then you let everyone see the nuns doing their thing — nuns reading, nuns praying, nuns baking and nuns sewing. So far the video has about 30,000 views, which is not huge by YouTube standards and it may not be enough to save the nuns. But the way I figure it, if we can bail out the Wall Street bunglers, then why not the nuns?
The last time I read about the Carmelites, which was a long time ago you, of course , had to read it in print. They didn’t have a phone number, and certainly not a E‑mail address. I do not speak Spanish, but from the context I understood the narrrative and could see that they were telling of a “day in the life” of a sister. Bravo to them and to our internet and to open culture for this epiphany.
TB