Dealing With The Toxic Shame of Student Loan Debt

In a few months, I'm considering making a promise to spend the rest of my life as a Carmelite. I'm starting to sweat my profession. First, I'm promising to spend 90 minutes to 120 minutes a day in prayer, which at this stage of my limited formation seems so incredibly boring.  In my early Carmelite days I used to hop around with interior joy and think "Yeah, it's prayer time. Time to get fed Royal Honey from the Creator of the World!" Now in the middle of a good case of acedia at age 40 I think, "By promising to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, a 1/2 hour of mental prayer, and attend Mass every day, that's about 2 hours a day in prayer for the rest of my life!"

I don't have any magical answers for the cure of acedia, except to look at the fruits. Prayer is like this huge battle. It's really hard. Yet we live in a time when almost everyone I meet on a daily basis is dying of loneliness and spiritual thirst. I'm much happier and more productive when I've got a steady prayer routine in my life. I usually enjoy helping "water" my husband and my children with this access to deeper grace. The few times, when I really want to give up, Christ will send me a stranger to greet who I somehow "give" the right words, or a comforting action, and I know that that knowledge didn't come from "me" but is a result of something "beyond me."

I live in a harsh social climite in a poor community inside the hills of Appalachia.  There is so much natural beauty around me. There is also so much harded sin. We're the state of fracking from coal companies and poisoned drinking water. Almost every single person that I adored from my Central West Virginia High School has left the State for better job opportunities. "I alone remain." My battles here are so small and so hardwon. I am so tempted to run away to a better spot. Yet there are so many times that I'm glad that I don't live in Washington D.C. or Boston or Portland. 

When I think about becoming a Carmelite here, in this State, I'm so filled with gratitude and hope. Only 5% of the State is Catholic. There are not many priests here or religious. I'm grateful to be close enough to an established Carmelite Community in Maryland that draws members from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. We have 3 members from West Virginia. While sometimes I wish we were part of a bigger, and more active, diocese there is something beautiful about taking all that wisdom and joy back over the bridge that crosses a state line at the Potomac River at the end of every meeting.

While my struggles to become a Carmelite are mostly internal, there is an external hurdle that as caused me anxiety recently, my student loan debt. I know that God is going to have big plans for me after I become a Carmelite. Since I'm joining an order based on the "virtue of poverty", I'm pretty sure I won't be getting paid for most of his work for me. For example, just this week, I'm writing a fiction book that no one is going to read. I'm an unpaid volunteer for a Conservation Film Festival. I'm a school teacher for my own children, which doesn't pay.

I'm excited to do more of this fun work. I like being a free agent for God inside this nutty world economy. 

But there is my $90,000 of student loan debt from Law School which has morphed into $115,000 after my elevan years of not working. On my calm days I think "only $25,000 for 11 years with 6 kids. What a bargain!" On my spiritually spiraling days, I think "What if I never repay this debt?"

Educational Debt is hard on me and sometimes it feels shameful and toxic. There's this issue of "Are you using your education?" As a woman, I also think "Am I letting down my gender?" (I went to a feminist all women's college) When I add the layer of debt to all the philosphical discussions, I start to feel like a real failure. I start to make vague plans to rush out and either get a part-time paralegal job or start my own business in order to "pull my own weight."

In the middle of this struggle, I keep finding these messages to slow down and appreciate what I give to the world. I'm learning that humility is not just an appreciation of what I lack, but also an appreciation of what I have.

One night last week, when I was struggling with my Secular Carmelite Vocation I did a google websearch that landed me on a Monestary page for Carmelite monks (friars). In black and white the monks said "We understand that your education will likely benefit your work in the Order. Therefore, we are happy to assume responsiblity for repayment of your educational debt. We can't do the same for other kinds of debt, including credit card debt and car loan. But contact us. We have worked with men in your same situation."

I felt this openness and lighteness when I read that sentence. I felt like there was a way into the Order, even as a Secular. Don't panic. Work diligently to get rid of all consumer debt, including our mortage. Realize that my extensive education benefits my work as a Carmelite. I need to be patient and trust that my educational loans can get repayed, even as I work for God.

Today I had the courage to relook at my student loans. It's amazing how much better the information for consumers has gotten in the 15 years since I signed my promissory notes for Law School. There is a national studentloan.gov website that gives comparative anaylsis among all my repayment plans in visual graphics! I was so happy to see a graph!

When I was 25, I took a low paying Non-Profit Law Job on faith. All, and I mean all, of my dear friends who went to a well known public interest law school to work in government or non-profit work, freaked out over the cost of our law school loans are 3rd year and went to work for huge Law Firms in Chicago or Milwaukee or New York City. I hung on to my first choice career dreams out of sheer stubbornness. 

After I had landed the impossible to find non-profit "dream job", I ended up having a horrible conversation over the phone (a landline, not a cellphone) with a Customer Service Specialist from Sallie Mae in the hallway of my cheap rental house in Portsmouth, Ohio. I had this awful moment of panic where I thought "My classmates were right. It is impossible to repay this education debt and still live at the same time." I hung on the phone line again out of stubbornness and kept saying "I can't pay this monthly debt amount. There has to be another way!" Of course, there was another option. They just didn't want to tell me about it.

When I looked at these cool graphics related to my specific situation, I realized how much that would have helped me navigate the confusion of student loan repayments at age 25. I'm also happy they replugged the loophole. Back in my day, they gave loan forgiveness to doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers. They didn't give it to lawyers. I was stuck in a hole where I had to pay a high price for a legal education to do the work I wanted to do in Appalachia, but important non-profit work had low wages. Now it looks like they offer loan forgiveness to all major non-profit workers. I'm happy. I'm glad no one else is going to have that stress.

I like finding the hard middle way. I want to do the special work that I, alone, was put on this plane to accomplish. I also want to be responsible and repay my student loan debt. Right now, my current repayment plan means that I'll finish my loans at age 62 or 63. That number is kind of laughable, right? I signed my first big loan promissory note for $18,000 at age 22. A mere 40 years later I'll get to celebrate my last loan payment.

When I find courage to look at the actual debt numbers and own my life choices, I feel this intense amount of joy. 

I'm so grateful that all of this messy, hard, spiritual journey to become a Carmelite means that I find peace in work, in debt, in family, in identity, in addition getting to chat with the Creator of the World with love and intimacy each day. Peace with God means Peace on Earth!

Thank you for listening to my long, ramblings. He sets the captives free!

My Unexpected 500th Birthday Present to St. Teresa of Avila

October 15, 2015 will mark the 500th Anniversary of St. Teresa of Avila's birth. In shy, reticent Carmelite circles this anniversary was a huge deal.  The Carmelite Sisters (nuns) are a contemplative order, meaning they shut themselves off from talking to almost anybody in order to better hear God and pray for everybody.

When I was a young blogger four years ago, I installed a "Countdown Clock" to make off this huge anniversary on "Abigail's Alcove." I had big plans on how to celebrate this milestone both internally and externally. I expected to make my final promise in May 2015. I wanted to reread all of St. Teresa's major works. I wanted to "be" Carmel and "do" Carmel in that ambitious 5 Year Plan Way that sometimes happens to both Graduate Students and Chinese Communist Leaders in the 1950s.

On October 11, 2014, I had an emergency birth of my premature son, John. I spent St. Teresa of Avila's Feast Day on October 15, 2014 in a whirl of doctor visits and lab tests. I told my husband "I'm skipping the big Saint Day of my favorite saint!"  

My husband did this wave of the hand thing he does whenever he is agitated with me and said, "St. Teresa would understand. This is the work that you should focus on for her!" 

I listened to him, sort of, in the moment. Mostly, I told myself "It's just one day and her 500th Celebration will last a whole year." There was that optimistic hope that I could get my life "back on track" in a few weeks. 

I thought I'd spent 2014-2015 as a year celebrating St. Teresa of Avila the way that I wanted to celebrate her. Instead, I found myself dragged along a year that started with a premature sixth baby and ended with an unfinished book. At this time of reflection, when I'm mourning the failure to reach some of my more ambitious spiritual goals, I have to give thanks that for the surprising year I had with St. Teresa of Avila. I'm so grateful to the friend who sent me a link to a museum exhibit of her writing, exactly when I was struggling with my own book. I'm happy that the daughter I named after her, Teresa, finally made peace with her NICU journey at Children's Hospital this summer. I'm happy for the Carmelite who gave me a piece of stone from Avila which I now keep in my jewelry box. There were so many moments on this rough journey where I felt my bff, St. Teresa of Avila, nodding at me. She is my friend. She is my sister of the heart.

In the 500th Year of St. Teresa of Avila's birth, I raised a premature baby to age 1. I battled anemia and post-partum anxiety. I welcomed a Pope to his first visit to America. I started a book, I scrapped it, I started another one. I changed my internal identity from "blogger" to "artist" and "writer". I changed my external website to reflect that shift. I turned 40. I narrowed my friend list in some areas and expanded my friend list in other areas. I stayed married, to a great guy, who I first fell in love with at 25. I taught school. I did the laundry. I washed the dishes and I steam cleaned the floor.

For 365 days in a year, I prayed almost every morning, along side a great writer, a great saint and a great friend, St. Teresa of Avila. I'm so grateful to her good example. She shows me that big thoughts can happen in the middle of my ordinary, daily work. If she never changed the diaper of a premature baby, although she might have, I hope that I made her laugh this year when I fumbled around in the task and asked for her intercession. I think making a saint smile is about the best birthday present a friend could ask me to give her.

Be Brave & Get Into A Fiat: What I Learned From My Pope's Visit To DC

One of the most talked about incidents during the Pope's visit to my area, happened right after the Holy Father landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George's County, Maryland. The Pope got off his airplane. He greeted the Cardinals, the priests, and the President of the United States. He smiled at the crowds. Then, Pope Francis got into a Fiat, a small, four door, Italian manufactured car and drove away.

The decision of Pope Francis to get into a Fiat instead of a traditional limousine sparked a lot of interest on social media. At first I felt a little out of the loop. All straight Catholics love the virtue of poverty. It's not like my previous Popes, Saint John Paul II, or Pope Emeritus Benedict, were against poverty and a spirit of detachment. Saint John Paul II survived slave labor under the Natzi occupation of Poland, and Pope Emeritus Benedict lived on something like a cup of soup a day in a WWII Prisioner of War Camp and later went to seminary in a bombed out building that used a ladder in place of a central staircase. Moreover, there is something to be said for the spiritual of humility of a Pope that accepts the ordinary transportation provided by a host country, particularly one that is freaked out about another terrorist attack after 9/11 .

Yet Pope Francis' entry into the United States was different. I don't know what kind of intense negotation went behind the scenes of the joint security team of the Swiss Guards, the Secret Service and the Metropolitian Police Department, but I'm sure there were many security people who were not exicted that the Pope wanted to ride in Downtown Washington D.C. inside a humble Fiat. The Pope stood his ground. In the end, there was no dangerous assassination attempt (Thank you Mary!) and the social media got to rejoice with an amazing picture of a smiling Pope looking out of the side car window of an Italian Fiat.

I have watched hours of the Pope coverage last week. I've prayed along side my family. I got to cheer on the Pope briefly in person. Yet my most important take-away message from the Papal Visit happened inside a closed event that I didn't attend.

My Pope got into a Fiat.

What I learned from that event is that if I work very hard to conform my life to Christ, then I can be free to express my individual spirituality in unique ways. 

It's an "if, then" statement that we learned about in logic class. The two motions are closely united. I have to work hard to bring my heart in union with Christ. I need to go to Mass. I need to go to Confession frequently. I need to pray hard. I need to diligently work on my ordinary, boring daily work that is encompassed in my vocation.

However, if I do that hard daily work for God, then the Holy Father tells me that I can be confident to make unconvential choices that make many people around me uncomfortable. Pope Francis got into a Fiat, even though ever Pope ahead of him had entered a limousine. He lives inside the Vatican Hotel, even though ever Pope ahead of him had lived inside the Papal Apartments. The Pope made 14 of his 18 speeches in Spanish, even though a lot of Americans are still fluent in only one language, English.

I don't knot what "Be Brave and Get Into A Fiat" means yet in my own personal vocation of marriage. I know that my life does not look like many good Catholic women around me, even though we all attend the same Mass each Sunday. I'm inspired to find out. The world needs more joy and more personal expression of a common and centuries old spirituality.

Thank you, Pope Francis for inspiring me to dream!