Palestine: A Green Home Away from Home · Global Voices
The American poet <PERSON> said, “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains.” In this post we hear about two women with a great love of nature: a nun who has found her home in the convent garden, and a city-dwelling mother who has brought her dreams of a village garden to the balcony of her apartment.
<PERSON> has interviewed Sister <PERSON>, a nun with a special love of plants. She was born in Lebanon but is now with the Rosary Sisters in Beit Hanina to the north of Jerusalem:
أنجيلا نهرا، أو نجلة كما كان اسمها قبل الترهبن، قاومت رفض العائلة لفكرة ان تصبح راهبة بأن أصرت على موقفها ورتبت أمر ترهبنها بدايةً في لبنان، حتى جاءتها الموافقة ودعيت من قبل الفاتيكان لابتداء مسيرة الترهبن في القدس، وكان ذلك أوائل التسعينيات. […] أنجيلا التي ترعرعت في قرية طرزا الخضراء والمحاطة بالحقول، لم تطور آنذاك روابطاً واضحة مع النباتات، ولكن حين وجدت نفسها في دير الرئاسة، حيث ستكرس معظم وقتها في هذا المكان، وعلى الرغم من صعوبات البداية والبعد عن الأهل، إلا أنها وجدت في النباتات إحدى الغايات إضافة إلى تكريس وقتها لخدمة الدير عبر الإشراف على الراهبات المسنات وإدارة جزء من شؤون البيت.
“النباتات بهاء الأرض، والدين معنى الحياة”، هكذا تربط أنجيلا بين النباتات والرهبنة.
<PERSON>, or <PERSON> as she was known before taking orders, resisted her family's rejection of the idea of her becoming a nun. 102
She insisted, and arranged to take orders at first in Lebanon, until the approval came and she was requested by the Vatican to begin her journey as a nun in Jerusalem. This was in the early nineties. […] <PERSON> grew up in the green village of Tourza surrounded by fields, but at that time she did not develop a clear connection to plants. However, she found herself in the convent, where she would devote most of her time, and despite the difficulties at the beginning and the distance from her family, she found plants to be one of her purposes, in addition to devoting her time to serving the convent by looking after the elderly nuns and managing part of the household's affairs. 102