 Sunday, May 02, 2004  Yesterday, May 1st, marked the 10th
anniversary of my leaving the convent. I was in for 9 1/2 years,
and now I've been out for 10. As I seem to experience major,
life altering changes every decade ending in "4", I have to
admit I'm a little curious about what might happen to me before
the end of this year...  If I had to distinguish between the two
decades, I would say that my decade in the convent went much
slower partly because I was younger, but also because I was so
bored so often. And because it had so much more suffering.  I
can divide the two decades by the things I learned in each.  In
the convent, I had an almost inconceivable -- to anyone in lay
life -- amount of face time with Jesus. In just about ten years,
I didn't start a single day without Mass and a half hour of
meditation. I made an hour of adoration every day for the first
four years, and then a daily hour and a half for the last six.
It's really quite amazing. Most of the time, I was reading the
Scriptures in an effor