Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde
by Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde, Visitation Companion
I wonder how each of our tales – and decades of life - reveal an evolution of our callings and the hand of God in our expanding hearts and minds? –Melissa
Where are you in your life’s journey? Are you happily settled in a career? Have you embraced the angsty place that is an evolving path with joy, humility? Are you a 20-something setting out with ideals and dreams? Do you claim the confidence of a person in their 30’s with some experience under his or her belt? Are you a 40-something who is inching over a mid-life hump or realization? Have you struck a solid gait in your 50’s, riding the wave of career and calling? Do you embrace the vision of retirement, volunteering, travel as a 60-something? Are you a wise elder of vigor and hope in your 70’s? Are you a contently animated senior citizen in your 80’s? Is awe – coupled with a weary joy and gratitude for life – part of your perspective in your 90’s?
I ask these questions, on the heels of recounting part of my own life journey with a group of neighborhood women last evening. Thinking about it all today, I wonder how each of our tales, and decades of life, reveal an evolution of our callings, and the hand of God in our expanding hearts and minds?
What does your life story sound like in a short paragraph of sentences describing each decade of your time on the earth?
Melissa with Visitation Sisters Mary Margaret, Mary Frances, Katherine, Mary Virgina and Karen on her 40th Birthday at St. Jane House.
In my 20’s I made a bunch of money selling college textbooks and bought a house before I went back to grad school to become a teacher. In my thirties, I published and presented professionally, earned a fellowship and was awarded several grants to work with inner-city high school students; I started an organization focused on leadership and literacy in and through the arts, traveled to Africa twice documenting and learning from people in six countries. I thought long and hard about becoming a nun and also fell in love with an actor, ex-con and heart doctor before leaving my professional life to clean other people’s houses. At 40, after selling my own home, paying off all my debt, co-authoring a literacy book and completing a writing contract for a research department at the university, I married and had a child. And now I blog for nuns.
It’s quite a ride, don’t you think?
Reflecting on my journey the past 43 years makes me wonder about each of you. What does your life story sound like in a short paragraph of sentences describing each decade of your time on the earth?
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On Monday, January 30, the Visitation Sisters and their lay partners launch the fourth season of our “Following the Spirit” Discernment Series. Twenty to twenty-five adults ranging in age and experience, faith and cultural background, will convene at St. Jane House to unpack their life stories and reflect on their evolving life vocations.
I was 32 before I opened my heart and mind to the possibility that God was inviting me to consider a religious life with Catholic Sisters; I wonder what the age and invitations are for other women and men? What full lives will they have lead before cracking open the next big question of vocation?
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Please keep us in prayer. If you are interested in joining us, we have the happy problem of having too many people at this point. We will put your name on a waiting list, and invite you to pray alongside our discerners using the tools at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research website, “Called to Life: Reflecting on Vocation.”
