Nuns are very long-lived, the secret lies in stillness, peace of mind!
One day more than ten years ago, I was on the night shift, and it was a red-dusty spring. At five o'clock in the morning, the sky was still dark, and the silent night continued. Nun Maria, as usual, woke up, took a bath herself, dressed herself, put on her headscarf, and waited quietly for my arrival.
Colleagues in the pension department were too busy to wear elastic socks and boots for the early nuns, and the task was to ask the night nurses in other departments. It just so happened that I was on duty that day, and I wanted to meet The Nun Mary, and I hadn't seen her for a long time, so I said to my colleague, I'm going to help.
Lying on the bed and continuing to pretend to sleep, Maria could not hear my footsteps, subconsciously opened her eyes, saw me standing by the bed, immediately piled up a smile, and said softly: "Goede morgen, zuster." (Good morning, nurse), I repeated: "Goede morgen, zuster." (Good morning, nun) The Dutch nurse and nun are the same word, as if the nun was the predecessor of the nurse.
After getting dressed, Maria thanked her one after another, her hearing was not good, her voice was very clear, and the energy of the morning was beyond ordinary people, and she kept talking. She was talking about her birthday the other day, and excitedly asked me to open the drawer in the living room and pull out a picture from a year ago with the mayor on her 101st birthday.
Looking at the faint light in the bedroom, looking at the childlike smiling face in the photo, and then looking at her in front of her, smirking. I laughed too, like Maria, like a little careless child.
Meet Sister Maria, work-related. The monastery of that year is now a place for rehabilitation, and more than fifty nuns can still live in the new suite and enjoy the dutch pension benefits. Like most nuns, Maria had a kind, reverential, grateful, and caring personality. She entered the monastery as a child, and according to her, it was quite fashionable at that time, because in the monastery she could read and learn. Maria was a successful nun who taught music in her youth, taught music to ladies in monasteries, and in her early years went to Indonesia to preach and immerse herself in Asian culture. Maria said she was very happy with her long life.
She said that I looked like an Indonesian and liked to tell me many stories from the past, and that time in Indonesia should be the most glorious years of her life.
One day, I asked the wrong question: "You have never been in love, have you regretted it?" ＂
"I have love, God is my lover," Maria said with pride and satisfaction. He added slowly, "I married God." As she spoke, the wrinkles on her cheeks suddenly became more pronounced, and she smiled slightly: "I am alive, it is a gift from God, and besides, we can talk to him every day." Maria said that the daily prayer in church was so calm, relaxed, and beautiful.
There were 52 suites in this department, which were originally built specifically for nuns. Most of them spent their whole lives in this monastery, praying every day, planting flowers and grass, repairing and repairing, giving charity, and the day-to-day life of the nuns was so simple, so boring, so heavy in my eyes.
Isn't it? That kind of vain love could make her live quietly for a hundred years, that book could make her read with relish for a lifetime, and that kind of unpaid work would allow her to work for a lifetime with peace of mind.
Pure stillness, quietness of the heart, pure stillness of no desire in the heart, just this quiet word, explains a lot.
There are very few nuns today, although almost all of them die after the age of 90, the monastery has no successor, the nuns are in the Netherlands, and will soon become the history and culture of the Netherlands. I had the privilege of witnessing their health and longevity in their last days, by chatting with them, by caring for them, by witnessing their days and nights, thus lifting the prejudice against nuns and discovering the secrets of their longevity. Their faith is firm, their hearts are pure, and their high life expectancy impresses me deeply.
Perhaps, it can be said that the life of a nun shows people a truth: resting life, long life.