Here is a question I am trying to figure out:

How is it that nuns, who are women who do what they are told to do, are so smart, strong, confident, fun to be around?

Each nun I know answers to an authority, who tells them what to do, such as….study philosophy in order to teach it…learn Japanese to minister to same…run this college…leave your high-profile role to care for your aging sisters. What confuses me is not what each is told to do. What confuses me is each is told to do something that was not their OWN idea. What stumps me is that this diminishes them not one whit.

The aunties, friends and colleagues I grew up with struggled to have their own voices heard, to have a say in their destinies, to decide what they would do. I think them noble and brave. I think nuns are noble and brave.