peace cross in design

I'm not the flowing veil and habit wearing kind of nun, but I do wear my peace cross faithfully every day. Our Constitutions say we dress simply and wear our peace cross as a special sign of our identity as a Sister of St Joseph of Peace. I've written before about some of the comments I get about our peace cross.

This morning I was taking a computer class at a local nonprofit to try to demystify Adobe InDesign, a program I use sometimes to make print publications. I've been using computers since elementary school and generally can figure out any program. InDesign is not intuitive to me, so I broke down and took a class which was quite helpful.

Towards the end of class this morning, my instructor Mike said to me, "Susan, I've been noticing your necklace. What organization did you say you're with again?".

So I told him I worked at a local peace and justice nonprofit, but that I was also a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace. "Wow," he said as two of my classmates sitting in the row ahead swung back to take a look at this strange specimen, a nun. "I never would have guessed you were a Sister," he said, then, somewhat unexpectedly given that he was a) a man and b) a computer instructor, he said "I would have loved to have been a nun working for peace."

Seriously.

I love the Peace Cross. It so simply states our charism of peace through justice. As a muslim shop keeper in England told me years ago, it is a beautiful Christian message. And it stands out and starts conversations. In a way, it's more subtle than a habit would be and helps me to connect with people sometimes at an unexpectedly deep level. Other times I just get the blank stare. But whenever anyone asks me about my peace cross, it gives me a chance to share about our charism and lets people know that yes, people still do take the leap into religious life.

PS - blogger is being goofy and I can't post a picture of the peace cross right now. But if you go to this page, you can see it.