Serenity| Reflection by Sr. Brenda Lisenby

“Pray to Love, Love to Pray” Courtesy of Anne Goetze

The following meditation on Anne Goetze’s mixed media artwork, “Pray to Love, Love to Pray” comes from  Sr. Brenda Lisenby. 

A black habited woman walks away, down a corridor. Her walking is a gentle walk, a knowing walk, a quiet walk. I cannot see her face, but I know it is serene—it reflects a serenity that comes from an interior posture of reposing in God, I think. I know this because I sensed the moment I saw this picture that it was an image I carry of myself.

“Can she truly know what is around the corner until she makes the turn?”

Many years ago I was attracted to a similar painting, in an art shop in Hong Kong. That picture is of a young woman dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothing, pushing her bicycle, with a “yue nan mao zi”–a Vietnamese hat as the Chinese called it. This woman was also walking away, her back to me, but I identified immediately with her. I, too, rode a bicycle daily. I, too, had a “yue nan mao zi” to keep the sun out of my eyes.

Toward an unknown destination…

And although I didn’t wear Vietnamese or even Chinese clothing, I did learn how to ride my bicycle in a skirt. But there was something more about this woman with her back to me. She was going somewhere, I didn’t know where. And the simple beauty of this young Vietnamese woman journeying on to her destination, an unknown destination from my viewpoint, communicated a serenity to my spirit.

 “I do not always know what I am walking toward, yet in spite of the unknown destination, I walk gently, knowingly, quietly.”

The picture of the Visitandine nun in her home in Annecy communicates a similar serenity to me. Once more, I cannot see her destination, but I know she knows…or maybe she doesn’t. It must be a corridor she has walked hundreds if not thousands of times. But can she truly know what is around the corner until she makes the turn? I am this woman, always on a journey, always walking away from yet toward something. I do not always know what I am walking toward, yet in spite of the unknown destination, I walk gently, knowingly, quietly.