Lessons from S. Anamaria

This is the article I've written for the St. Placid Priory Newsletter.  I wanted to share it with you, my readers!

“When things change, we must adapt.” This is the major lesson I have learned from Sister Anamaria Haule, a Benedictine sister from Tanzania who has lived at St. Placid Priory for the past eight and a half years.  I have been a volunteer at St. Placid for the past nine months, and my main work has been to tutor and assist S. Anamaria and her fellow Tanzanian sister, Redempta, in their school work.

I came to St. Placid last September having just graduated from the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota.  I felt confident I could give of my academic skills to help the Tanzanian sisters on their journey because I had worked at a Writing Center for three years. I jumped right in to editing and proofreading the sisters' daily work. 

After one long evening of writing work, S. Anamaria shared some stories from her childhood with me.  She told me what it was like to grow up in poverty in an African village.  She vividly described the hardships she had encountered and also the blessings she had received.  She opened my eyes to her journey to the United States, her journey through her life, and I felt both astonished and guilty.  I had assumed that she, like I, had chosen to be here; I had assumed that I was at St. Placid to teach her something, to help her out because she was lacking.  

I discovered, that evening, along with many subsequent evenings and afternoons of reminiscing and sharing, that I had much more to learn from my Sister Anamaria than I could ever hope to teach her.  I have corrected her English grammar, inserted endless "the's" into her papers, and passed on objective knowledge that will help her communicate more clearly with the English-speaking world.  But the wisdom, the life lessons, the simple but profound philosophy that S. Anamaria lives has taught me how to live in harmony with God.

S. Anamaria has often expressed her disbelief that she is in America, that she has graduated from college, that she has been given the opportunity to learn English and improve her community and her home country of Tanzania.  She grew up in a one-room bamboo hut with her stepmother and cousins.  She had no money; she ate meat at most twice a year; she had never seen a paved road; she had only finished elementary school before joining the Benedictine community.  When her prioress told her she was being sent to America, she was utterly shocked.  She thought someone smarter, someone more educated or with more scholastic aptitude should be given the opportunity to go.  But when the prioress asked her to go, she accepted.  S. Anamaria allowed the hugest change of her life to happen, and she decided to adapt to it as best she could.  She came to America speaking very little English, and now she has graduated from an American university with a bachelor's degree.  She has flourished and flowered because of her motto: "When things change, we must adapt."  

S. Anamaria describes her journey from Tanzania, to America, and now home again, as a Circle of Life.  She has traveled a road of learning, change, and adaptation to make it through this season of her life.  She has succeeded and grown because, when something changes for S. Anamaria, when I re-explain an assignment that she misunderstood, when she makes cheese and it doesn't turn out, when she plans to go somewhere and it rains, she says very calmly, "Ok."  

I have often struggled with allowing God to change me, or to change the plans I have for my life.  I know what I want, and I work hard to get it.  I get upset with God when things don't go my way, when I have to start over or rearrange things because I don't have control over everything.  I don't want things to change.  But, as S. Anamaria has told me over and over, things do change: "That is life, Megan."  I don't get to choose what happens in my life.  I can ask, I can pray, I can do my absolute best, but in the end, God decides.  I can either accept the change God puts in my life and adapt to it, or I can resist it and fight against it and be angry with God.  But if I am to grow, if I am to allow God to work in my heart, in my life, and through my actions, I have to be like S. Anamaria.  I have to let changes help me grow into a beautiful butterfly, like they have for S. Anamaria.  Change is not easy; it is not painless or risk-free; it is not passive.  In order to change gracefully, we must accept that God wants us to adapt.

Each stage of our lives brings us change.  Each circle in our lives brings us closer to God, if we choose to adapt and accept the challenge.  And when we adapt to God's changes, we become more fully the people God means us to be.  S. Anamaria understands that about God, and her example has taught me to be open.  And because S. Anamaria has adapted to her changes, she can now spread her wings and fly.