c. 2005 Religion News Service

NEW ORLEANS _ Before Hurricane Katrina hit, photographer David Spielman had spent more than 30 years working on a photo essay on the Poor Clare nuns, the dwindling Catholic cloistered order that dwells in an Uptown convent.

“They are my family,” he said. “There are only eight of them left, the youngest is in her mid-50s, I’m guessing, and the average age is probably late 70s. When they’re gone, they’re gone.”

The Poor Clares, Spielman said, had planned to stay through the storm. But when they lost water pressure and there was chaos in their neighborhood, Spielman went to them and begged them to evacuate. He told them there was “a lot of bad stuff going on.”

“They invited me into their house meeting,” he said. “It was the first time a male was ever invited.”

He convinced them to evacuate. They packed up in three cars and went to a sister convent in Brenham, Texas, east of Austin.

What Spielman saw in their faces and eyes was memorable. And sad. “You could feel that they were thinking they might never get to come back here,” he said. “A cloistered order of nuns and in some cases this was the only place they’ve ever lived.”

Before they left, he was told, “Our house is your house.” They asked him to stay at the convent.

“We want to make you an honorary sister,” one of them said.

“A half-sister or a step-sister?” Spielman asked.

“No, a full sister,” came the reply.

“They are witty, articulate, intelligent, genteel and extremely kind,” he said. “They are a praying order _ they don’t teach. If you have intentions or wishes for people, you can ask them to pray.”

They gave Spielman the key to the convent. He told two National Guard units in the area that he was there, and he checks in with those units and the nuns in Texas daily.

“When I go through that gate … I know I’m safe,” he said. “There is such a calm there. I go into the chapel. I have a candle lit for them. I ring the bell. That’s to tell God that they are not there right now, they’re someplace else _ but they are not gone.”

Spielman, who converted to Catholicism in 2000, runs a generator a few hours a day to keep his refrigerator cool and to run his oscillating fan.

“It’s so eerie,” he said. “There are no lights on _ none. You get to see this incredible set of stars we’ve never seen before in the city because the ambient light is so great. You don’t hear any ACs humming, no buses on Magazine or streetcars on St. Charles _ all you hear are birds and wind.”

He’s been around the city, over to the Gulf Coast, and up in a helicopter. With his photos he’s trying to give more of a perspective of the loss, he said.

“I want my photos to say something. One was of a gargantuan oak tree that had fallen. It made a three-story house on Prytania Street look diminutive. Three hundred years of history gone, just like that, and anyone who lives in a home that size anywhere in the world will sense the enormity of it.”

Spielman, 55, is an avid athlete who has gone more than 4,250 days without missing a run.

“I ran the day after the storm came through,” he said. “You couldn’t go more than 10 yards without having to stop or dodge a limb.”

Despite the hardships, including a steady diet of peanut butter, Spielman feels he’s done the right thing.

“I’m always looking to test myself _ my running streak, my freelance work,” he said. “This is another test and it’s a religious and spiritual test. This draws upon all your core values. You have to be incredibly patient, you have to be cautious, and you have to believe in rituals.”

His rituals now include lighting the candles, ringing the bell, and making sure that in some small way, the Poor Clares’ convent comes to life every day during their absence.

“It’s why we are on this Earth, for stuff like this,” Spielman said. “Everybody can do the other stuff.”

MO/PH END LIND

(Angus Lind is a columnist for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.)

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