by Sister Jennifer Halling, OSB
Special to The Leaven
When Sister Cyprian Vondras, OSB, celebrated her 100th birthday in 2020, she offered a piece of sage advice to Mount Sisters in Atchison about how to stay active in their elder years: “Get a hobby!”
Sister Grace Malaney, OSB, took this advice to heart. Overachiever that she is, she took up not one but three hobbies: playing “killer” sudoku, learning to play the piano and writing poetry. Sudoku comes naturally to her, having been a math teacher at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas, for 30 years. Getting the hang of playing the piano wasn’t too much of a stretch as she was a musician in her teen years (she played trombone in the Lillis High School marching band in Kansas City, Missouri). As it turns out, Sister Grace’s connection to poetry has even deeper roots.
“My mom read poetry to me when I was a child, and when I was eight years old, she gave me a notebook that lay flat and a pen I could dip in brown ink to write down my favorite poems,” Sister Grace remembers. Among those she transcribed were “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant (“I thought the last lines were about taking a nap,” she said) and “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“By the shore of Gitche Gumee . . .”). In retrospect, Sister Grace realizes that her mom was trying to distract her from worrying about her father, who was serving as a sailor in World War II.
Sister Grace’s current practice of writing poetry was inspired by something Sister Susan Barber, OSB, said during a community choir practice: “Sing on the soft side of light.”
“Those were the words I needed to free up the muse in me,” said Sister Grace, and they led her to write her first poem, “A Liturgist’s Request.”
Since then, Sister Grace has written hundreds of poems.
“When I feel a poem coming on, it’s like someone else formulated it and I just write it down,” she said. “I get so excited when I write a poem; I feel humbled, like someone gave it to me.”
The psalms are a steady source of inspiration for Sister Grace’s poems; she finds it helpful to read different translations of the psalms, including a Portuguese version she reads every morning. (Sister Grace learned to speak and write Portuguese during her time as a missionary in Brazil in the 1970s and early 1980s.) Some of her poems are inspired by ringing the bells at the beginning of morning prayer, which has been her practice for many years.
Sister Grace also muses about aging in her poems.
“I’m old, and I’ve probably accomplished what I’m supposed to,” she says, “but wonderful things can happen when you’re old, too. Poetry helps me keep noticing things — the common, ordinary, everyday things that now seem to be enough.”
With the help of fellow Benedictine Sisters Esther Fangman and Judith Sutera, Sister Grace has compiled some of her poems into a book, “Passing Through.”
“It’s my last chance to be famous,” she commented (or maybe not, as a second book is in the works!). “Passing Through” is available for $10 through the Mount’s Monastery Goods gift shop (www.mountosb.org/gift-shop).
Sister Grace is grateful for Sister Cyprian’s advice about getting a hobby, especially because writing poetry has helped her to be more mindful.
“You never know when inspiration will strike, so you always need to be attentive,” she says.
Passing Through
By Sister Grace Malaney, OSB
I know I am not home yet.
Just on my way . . .
But could I take a little something with me
When I leave?
I am sure I will need the moon,
And the sun, and all the stars.
All the grass, and rain, and bird song.
Definitely I’ll need thunder, and lightning.
Well, and oceans.
And all the people.
You may have to cheat a little there,
But I think I need them all.
I guess this means I am not ready.
But I would also need trumpets,
And tulips,
Rubber bands and safety pins.
Yes I am not ready.
That’s for sure.
Eye has not seen
Nor ear heard . . .
And that’s a problem for me.
I’d like to feel at home,
And I don’t like surprises.
I am a planner. So I plan.
Then I do what I plan.
Yes, I know. It’s never really worked.
OK I will just let go.
Have it your way.
But don’t surprise me.
Just give me my heart’s desire.
Oh . . . and forests.
Reprinted with permission from “Threshold,” a publication of the Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, Atchison, Kansas.
