Through the Narrow Gate: A Nun’s Story. Karen Armstrong

in a larger perspective.

      When I wrote Through the Narrow Gate, I thought that I had finished with religion. Yet because of the book, I was invited to write and present a documentary series for British Channel 4 Television about Saint Paul. Much of the filming was done in Jerusalem, and there, for the first time, I confronted Judaism and Islam, Christianity’s two sister religions, as living, integral faiths. In order to understand the early church founded in large part by Saint Paul, I had also to learn about the Jewish world that gave birth to it. For the first time, Judaism became more to me than a mere prelude to Christianity, and I was increasingly fascinated by the differences and similarities between the two faiths. In the same way, living and working so intensely in the Middle East made me want to learn about Islam, and I was frequently enthralled by what I found. After I had finished the television series, other assignments followed—all concerned with religion. I began to flesh out the grounding in scripture, theology, and church history that I had acquired in the convent, but this time I was seeing it in conjunction with the development of other faiths.

      At first my new involvement in religion remained on an intellectual, critical level. But as I went deeper into the history of religion, I began to experience that sense of being on a quest that had impelled me to become a nun and had kept me in the convent for all those years. It was different, of course, because I was an older and—I hope—wiser person this time around. Though particularly drawn to the study of mysticism, I knew from my attempts at meditation in the convent that I did not have it in me to be a mystic. Yet occasionally, when I am studying—either at my desk at home or in the British Library—I have what can only be described as a glimmer of transcendence. It only lasts a fraction of a second, but it gives one the sense that life has some ultimate meaning and value for that brief moment, in much the same way as a great piece of music or an inspiring poem. There is no way of categorizing that Something any more than it is possible to explain why art or music has this power; it cannot be summed up in a message or doctrine. But I now know enough to realize that what I am engaged in is what the Benedictine monks call lectio divina (divine study), which, they say, yields occasionally an inevitably brief second of oratio (prayer).

      When I spoke of this experience to some of my colleagues at the Leo Baeck College in London, where I do a little teaching, they laughed and told me that I was very Jewish in my spirituality. Jews, they explained, immerse themselves in the Bible and the Talmud not simply to gain information; they see the text as a place where they can encounter the ineffable God. Sometimes they like to speak the Hebrew words aloud, savoring the words that God himself used when he revealed himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, until they have learned them “by heart” (a revealing phrase). They sometimes sway backwards and forwards while they recite the Hebrew words, as though they were blown by the breath of the Holy Spirit, pliable before God as a flame before a breeze. Occasionally, they get a sense of Something greater that lies behind and within the words but defies explanation.

      I am not claiming any great visionary experience, yet occasionally while studying theology, I too feel uplifted by a second of wonder and delight that momentarily illuminates the whole page. This type of spirituality would, it seems, have suited me better than the kind of meditation we learned in the convent. Everybody comes to the divine in his or her own way, and it seems that my writing and broadcasting career, which has often been critical of certain aspects of religion, has led me back to some form of religious life.

      I could not have known this when I sat down to write Through the Narrow Gate in 1980. I am no longer a practicing Roman Catholic, but I usually call myself, slightly tongue in cheek, a “freelance monotheist.” At present I draw sustenance from other traditions as well as from Western Christianity. The study of comparative religion, I am told, rarely inspires a person to convert to another faith but it makes him see his own religion differently. I can now appreciate what the spirituality I learned in the convent was aiming for and, perhaps, where it went wrong—at least for me. It also seems that the quest that began on the fourteenth of September, 1962, the day I entered the religious life, has continued, and led me to paths that I never expected.

      —Karen Armstrong

       London, August 1994

       Enter by the narrow gate, since the gate that leads to perdition is wide, and the road spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that lead to life, and only a few find it.

       —Matthew7:12

       1 • BEGINNINGS 1962

      It was 14 September 1962, the most important day of my life. On the station platform my parents and my sister, Lindsey, were clustered together in a sad little knot, taking their last look at me. I was seventeen years old and was leaving them forever to become a nun.

      Kings Cross station was a confused flurry of shouting porters, whistles, people dodging and tearing through barriers. A disembodied voice announced arrivals and departures. An old lady walked down the platform, smartly dressed, leaning on her stick and looking fixedly at the ground, lost in her private world. A group of soldiers drinking beer from bottles laughed gustily at the far end of the platform. A young girl and a boy were standing with their arms draped clumsily round each other, whispering intensely. Saying good-bye.

      I looked at this from the windows of the train, but it was like watching a film or seeing it all through a thick glass screen. The whole day had been like this. I had gotten up that morning early, packed my suitcase and stripped my bed, folding the sheets and blankets neatly, conscious somewhere that this was the last time. I took a last look round the house, knowing that I ought to be feeling something, but actually feeling very little. Just a numbness, a blocking of all responses. But underneath all that I was aware of a fluttering excitement. At last the day had come. For the past year I had been looking forward to it with an intensity I had never experienced before, terrified that something would happen to stop it. I was beginning a huge spiritual adventure.

      The night before I had read Monica Baldwin’s book I Leap Over the Wall, written after twenty-eight years in a convent. It was a book that was legendary to me. The nuns at school had always spoken of it in tones of dire disapproval mixed with a kind of pity. “Poor woman,” they had always said, “it’s so obvious that she hadn’t got a vocation.” Somewhat guiltily I had bought a copy and devoured it in the privacy of my bedroom. It was my last chance to read it and I felt compelled by furtive curiosity. I say I read it, but I skipped large chunks. I wasn’t interested in the author’s adventures after leaving her convent. I wanted to know what had happened to her inside. Her account of the austerities of the life didn’t put me off for a moment. I knew that it was going to be hard; I wanted it to be hard. It wouldn’t be worth doing otherwise. What were a few hardships if they led to a close relationship with God? I felt sorry for Monica Baldwin. How could she have given up?

      I glanced impatiently at my watch and then instantly felt contrite. This was a wonderful day for me, but my family had not chosen this. For them it was not a glorious beginning but an end. I looked down at them, knowing sadly that even now they were hoping against hope that I would change my mind at the last minute. None of that showed, however. My parents, tall and elegant, smiled bravely up at me. My sister was looking at me with awe mingled with horror, hardly able to believe that this was really happening. She was three years younger than I but already she was far taller and looked much older. Even at fourteen she possessed a physical poise and confidence that marked her as the sort of child my parents should have had. Like them she loved life; nothing was going to make her enter a convent. But I wasn’t like that. To me the world had proved an unsatisfactory place. It wasn’t enough. Only God with His infinite perfection could complete me. “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.” St. Augustine’s words in his Confessions expressed what I felt exactly. I had read them for the first time a few months ago, during the school retreat. If the Gospels were true, it seemed to me, then logically there was nothing else to do but become a nun and give my whole life to God. Only He could satisfy me.

      My parents could not really understand