The sisters order of felicity
An old stone building lay in the young morning mist, nestled in the hills among the orchards and vineyards, sheltering an inner courtyard where, by day and by night, the fountain trickled, herbs grew, and the sisters of the order pursued their thirst for knowledge. In the Order of Felicity they searched for the difficult answer to a simple question: What brings us happiness?
It was a question with many answers. It required many disciplines: that of the body, to be strong and healthy; that of the mind, to be full of ideas, vitality, and hunger for life; and that of the soul, to understand the meaning behind it all and to see oneself as part of a greater whole.
The order had a solid reputation, one of celibacy, deprivation, and thirst for knowledge, of piety and deep asceticism. But this reputation was nothing more than a shield for the women who found deep peace and fulfillment here, and in whose lives none of these virtues played too great a role.
The sisters had all entered the order of their own free will: an alternative path to dealing with children, a husband, and a household. Here they were sealed off from the world, at peace with themselves and their sisters. Their contribution would not be to create a new generation, but to pass something on to it: knowledge. Specifically, the knowledge of how the children of the future might attain happiness too.
Among the sisters, there was not always agreement on how to answer the question. But it was precisely this disagreement that drove them to think more, try more, and discuss more. It was part of the engine behind everything they did.
One damp April morning, a carriage pulled up in front of the order's building, drawn by four white horses and trumpeting its splendor in gilded ornamentation. What followed, however, had little of elegance or grandeur about it: first the door was flung open and a large trunk thrown to the ground, then followed a young woman in a lavishly embroidered dress. Both landed in the dust, and before the woman could even pick herself up again, the door had slammed shut behind her and the horses were already moving again.
That was the day the order received its first unwilling member.
It took the sisters some time to extract from the young girl what had transpired for she soon began to sob uncontrollably. She was the daughter of a wealthy noble in the area and she had to be wedded soon. Her father gave her some reign in choosing her husband so she had used the opportunity to scare every single one of them away. He had warned her that if she continued these workings there would be no one left to marry her and that he couldn't meet her in goodwill anymore if that had happened. But she hadn't heeded his warning and had scared off one after the next suitor until truly there were none of them left anymore. With no one to wed her, she had been made to leave for a convent.
The sisters calmed her as much as they could but it was sure she would not be able to leave, for she would have been without support. The sisters looked at each other. They never before had someone in their midst who had dreaded to be here, who was dreadfully unhappy about it. And soon there spread a smile on their faces for god had presented them with a great gift: a soul on which to test their research and their theories, a real person to guide towards true joy. Surely it must have been meant that way.
So they clothed the young woman, whose name was Theresa, into the pure white garbs of the order and set to work on bringing her into happiness.
First Theresa was fed a warming and nourishing meal. It wasn't fine and sophisticated as the ones she had had before in her noble family, but the meal was taken together with all sisters, the bread was warm and split easily under shared hands. The soup tasted of love and the sun that fell onto the kitchen garden, and their feet were warmed by the recent litter of the abbey cat.
Theresa was silently shedding tears throughout the meal while she moped up every last ounce of her lentil stew with the soft bread. Her tears were not solely out of desperation anymore, they were strange liminal tears, knowing that something had ended horribly and abruptly but something new was already seeding in its stead.
Next the sisters took Theresa outdoors to the courtyard and let her sit in silence at the tinkling well. She sun was slanting through the wisteria blossoms and the yard was filled with bees and floral smell. The calm sounds of the water and the rustling in the trees was only occasionally marked by quiet laughter of a sister or by the jingling of their keys. Theresa slumped on the bench, being pressed down by the fate that had taken hold of her. The meal lie in her belly and the sun on her hair in the new white veil. The water was lulling her to sleep and soon she lay napping on the bench, watched from the walkway arches by her fellow sisters with a quiet smile.
After Theresa awoke two sisters took her between them and took her out to the orchards. There they worked in companionably silence to prune the trees, rake the leaves and carry around what needed to be moved. They soon started perspiring in the late afternoon sun, which soon slipped behind the abbey and left them working in the crisp April air for some while before the light became frail and the shadows too long. Then they slipped inside where a sparse but hearty evening meal was waiting for them to take with their sisters.
The day had been long and eventful for Theresa, but while she sat among them with her thick slice of dark bread and the pickles from the cellar she felt something rise in her chest. It was that new spark she felt that left her untouched as she was later being shown into a rather sparse chamber with a small bed without any of the luxuries or riches she was used to. It was that spark that let her imagine the pictures she could draw to fill the walls or the flowers she could pick in the orchards to sit on her windowsill. She was imagining the future.
The sisters works had already started to take hold and Theresa was, unbeknownst to her, already on the path to joy. She was becoming the first successful subject of the sisters order of felicity.
Der Schwesternorden der Glückseligkeit
Da lag im jungen Morgennebel ein altes Gemäuer in den Hügeln, eingebettet in die Obstwiesen und Weinfelder, beschützend um den inneren Hof gelegt in dem zu Tag und Nachtzeit das Wasserspiel plätscherte, die Kräuter wuchsen und die Schwestern des Ordens ihrem Wissensdurst nachgingen. Im Orden der Glückseligkeit suchten sie nach der schwierigen Antwort auf die einfache Frage: Was bringt uns Glückseligkeit?
Dies war eine vielfältig zu beantwortende Frage. Es bedurfte vieler Disziplinen: Der des Körpers um stark und gesund zu sein, der des Geistes um voller Ideen, Vitalität und Lebensdurst zu sein und der Disziplin der Seele um den Sinn hinter all dem zu verstehen und sich als Teil eines Ganzen zu betrachten.
Der Orden hatte eine gute Reputation, der von Zölibat, Entbehrung und Wissensdurst, von Gottesfurcht und tiefer Askese. Doch diese Reputation war nichts weiter als ein Schutzschild für jene Frauen die hier tiefen Frieden und Entfaltung erfuhren und in deren Leben keiner dieser Tugenden eine zu übergeordnete Rolle spielten.
Die Schwestern waren allesamt freiwillig in den Orden eingetreten, ein alternativer Lebensweg statt sich mit Kindern, Ehemann und Hof zu befassen. Hier waren sie abgeschottet von der Welt, in Frieden mit sich selbst und ihren Schwestern. Ihr Beitrag würde nicht darin bestehen eine neue Generation zu erschaffen, sondern ihr etwas mitzugeben: Wissen. Speziell das Wissen wie auch die Kinder der Zukunft Glückseligkeit erlangen konnten.
Unter den Schwestern herrschte nicht immer Einigkeit über die Beantwortung der Frage. Doch es war eben jene Uneinigkeit, die sie dazu antrieb mehr zu Denken, mehr zu Versuchen und mehr zu Diskutieren. Es war Teil des Motors hinter ihrem Tun.
Eines feuchten April-Morgens fuhr eine Kutsche vor dem Ordensgebäude vor, die mit goldenen Ornamentbesatz und vier Schimmeln gezogen ihre Pracht herausposaunte. Die nachfolgende Szene jedoch hatte wenig von Eleganz und Prächtigkeit: erst wurde die Tür aufgestoßen und ein großer Koffer auf den Boden geworfen, dann folgte eine junge Frau in einem prachtvoll bestickten Kleid. Beide landeten im Staub und noch eher sich die Frau wieder aufrappeln konnte, war die Tür hinter ihr zugefallen und die Schimmel setzen sich bereits wieder in Bewegung.
Das war der Tag an dem der Orden sein erstes unfreiwilliges Mitglied erhielt.