Goodness And Love (Rev) Poem by Margaret Alice

Finished reading The Nun’s Story -
filled with boundless admiration for
nuns giving up individual feeling
for holy devotion

Hearts fired by their mental gymnastics
striving for deeper values, igniting a
flame in me, ideals carried in the
hearts of the blessed

Gabrielle’s love for people and life was
greater than blind obedience to empty
rules, she left the covenant because
rules were too important

Painful to share her suffering in
attempting to become an automaton,
her remorse on failing to destroy her
beautiful personality

Adding grist to the mill of my attempt
to remain happy in a bureaucracy run
amok, earning a salary without bitterness.
Keeping the faith in goodness and love…

Kathryn Hulme “The Nun’s Story” Chivers
Press 1983 - First published 1956