Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life

by Patricia Hampl

A gifted writer's inquiry into one of the most profound yet least discussed issues of contemporary American the individual's search for faith. It tells of Hampl's quest to escape the indelible brand of a Catholic upbringing, following her to the "old world" of Catholocism in Spain and France, where she meets other pilgrims, back home again, and finally to a monastery in northern California, where she is able to settle into the real goal of her the silence of prayer.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Religion, Biography Memoir, Travel, Christianity

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

About the author

Patricia Hampl is an American memoirist, writer, lecturer, and educator. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and is one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center.

Reviews

[Paulette · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can't find God on a pilgrimage unless you can recognize Him within yourself. Ingrained RC attitudes can keep people isolated. Alone and Lonely aren't the same thing. Prayer is not about words.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not particularly religious, let alone Catholic, or a contemplative nun, I am a woman, of a certain age, in a period of transition, and probably because of that, as much as anything, I was thankful for this work by Patricia Hampl.

Divided into three sections, Faith, Miracles, and Slience, Virgin Time explores, in part, what it means to be religious, or at least contemplative, in a modern age.

More than anything, I was struck by Hampl's vision of prayer as "purely attentive" -- as joyful, honest observation-- described in metaphor as song ("Call it surrender, but I always understood it to be song") and as poetry ("They (the monastic life and prayer) aren't "poetic" they are poetry itself. . . . like poetry, the monastic life seizes upon daily life and renders it as a symbol, attuned to season, to hour, to the cycle on which our lives depend. . . time reckoned as poetry, hours made into verses, with the white space of silence, work (another kind of silence), and community in between the stanzas.").

As I say goodbye to 2013 and look forward to 2014, I hope (resolve?) to bring some on Hampl's wisdom with me. To live in the coming year "always from the core of [my] imagination, which must be the heart of integrity" and with "the confident relish, not simply the steely judgment, of one willing to keep taking note of this endless prayer, with its ups and downs, its idiocies and poignancy." To remember that, perhaps, "it is not wisdom after all. It is compassion. That bread and butter grace, the communion we must kneel to receive." And to live, "not seizing the day, but something more mysterious, attaining it."

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book cannot compare to the memoirs of Kathleen Norris or Terry Tempest Williams, it does hold more spiritual insight than some – that is if you are seeking spiritual insight that is in the tradition of the Christ. Hampl is purely Catholic but her readers who are not can still glean from the spirituality in this writing. Reviews have said that her writing is vivid and unique – I found this only in certain sections and at certain moments. Otherwise she is average but good.
This book is travel writing for the most part, but her spiritual insights from time to time give it a deeper flair. About a third of the way into the book, I feared that my time might be wasted but I preserved. She visits Assisi and writes much of St. Francis. I learned much about him here and she has inspired me to read more about him. She then journeys to her next stop, Lourdes, has some unusual insight was she visits and then does an unceremonious jump to a week-long retreat she takes to the west coast and while she does not tell the reader how these two really fit together, we see that they disjointed fit in her spiritual quest for a mystical experience or at least the validation of one she had a as a child. Hampl doesn’t make judgment, which is to her credit. Yet, she also doesn’t purely define what she is seeking. I liked this and I didn’t. Most spirituality is that way. We know we are seeking, we think we may know what we are seeking and often we find something much different when we come to the culmination of our quests … and we are ok with that. This is much how I felt by the end of the book. This was just another experience on the journey.

[lee lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a GREAT memoir to read...for anyone just coming to the genre or for anyone searching for themselves or for anyone who is anyone. i really love it. like i said, it's much better than what's-her-name's book about a spiritual quest to find yourself, because this one has feeling and meaning and truth whereas the other one is just plain silly AND poorly written. if you don't know which book i'm talking about, take a look at my reviews and see if you can figure it out. oooh--a game! games are fun!

[Louisa Keys · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading a memoir of a seeker of serenity and add to it the seeker is from my hometown, I found intriguing. I enjoyed the stories of her youth and the descriptions of the streets I too had grown up on. But then I got lost. The characters she met along her path were never fully developed...interesting people, but such a shallow glimpse of them. Perhaps that's what Ms. Hampl experienced and was trying to portray...if so, good job, but I found myself counting pages to complete before I could put this book aside.

[Darleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is rather meandering without clear direction, perhaps like a pilgrimage, but it felt to me like it could have benefitted from an editor's eye. I read it on a plane and it was fine for that. I enjoyed it, but for a spiritual exploration of pilgrimage, I would want a deeper reflection on the places and people she encountered.

[Teri Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language of this book is so beautiful. The spiritual journey is intriguing and enlightening and wonderful, but it's the language, the turn of phrase, the description and metaphor and wonder, that make it something to savor.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about Hampl's faith journey back into Catholicism as told through her travels. I liked this book in its depth and literate merits especially the section on miracle so I give it 3 stars.

FAITH:

She apparently retreated to the monastery b/c of past hurts and wanting to rekindle her Catholic faith. Being a young woman, she rebelled against her faith in order to have the sacredness of self-expression. Hampl says that the religious have connections everywhere and thus know what is happening to people abroad b/c of the Catholic's in that region asking for prayers. She is drawn to the religious life b/c of what was previously lacking her life and the life she was surrounded with, that is spirituality. Hampl states that while God represents the silence, we represent the communal prayer and psalms to sing to our God. The reason she fell away from the Church was do to limited viewpoint of cultural Catholicism and had nothing to do about her spiritual life.

She interestingly observed that while women saints were always virgin and martyrs male saints were never described as virgins. Which means while women were suppose to be virgins, men never were. Again, the whole disgust of people of differing religions marrying each other was present. Also, she states that Catholicism was akin to race that once a Catholic always a Catholic. She states that Catholicism is very virginal in "its stubborn habit to trust and its taste for finding meaning in everything".

In Catholic school, Hampl's favorite subject was literature. While the nuns focused on what girls should not be doing as guiding pitfall's through life, Hampl took away from that to trully live life would risk getting into "hot water". Education for Catholic girls was about life lived in contemplation not active (like the bad girls) nor passive (like the dumb good girls) but to be contemplative in ones nature. For the nuns, a women's highest vocation was pondering. The nuns themselves were detached from their pupils lives and did not recruit them to be nun themselves. The nuns advocated moderation in everything the girls engaged. Through literature, the nuns liked exposing the girls various viewpoints since the nuns were secure in their girls faithfulness to Catholicism.

MIRACLES:


It use to be the monasteries were rest homes for stranger, pilgrims, and general travellers. Patricia took refuge in a monastery in Assisi. Hampl felt a kinship to the mystics that went before her in Assisi. Franciscan believed in universal kinship to mankind; thus had charm to treat everyone accordingly. Apparently each contemplative order is autonomous and gets to choose its "personality" within the charism of the entire order. Each order has its rule and every monastery within that order has the ability to choose the interpretation to choose how the rule would apply to their monastery. Hampl likens the Rule to the US Constitution that gets reinterpreted to stay relevant to its succeeding people. The charism of each order reflect the personality of its founder. St. Francis is the patron saint of environmentalist as son of a merchant family who turned away from it to devote his life to serving others and communing with animals.

Hampl met with a contemplative nun who was an American physician who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism when she was younger and she experienced a union with God during her first communion. Contemplative orders seek union with the Divine. For the Franciscans, Assis was home instead of an ecclesiastical meeting place. They talked about Francis and Claire like they were old family friends. Francis was a pure mystic who prefered to be egalitarian thus was called brother instead of ordained a priest. He wanted to be one of the people who suffered to be one of the people instead of a preacher who condemned others. The Franciscans are all family but independent @ the same time. You get the warmth if you are in the circle but they will not get to close to you. Hampl's roommate, Elise, thought the trip to Assisi was disappointing b/c as a charismatic Catholic she thought that she would be suffused with the Spirit but instead got religious Americans who were acting like normal people doing touristy things.

Francis did not want to find an order nor to get money but rather he wanted to live in simplicity and get alms from people he wanted to emulate, the dispossessed. Whereas the older religious orders were romantic in their desire to serve God, the newer religious orders were pragmatic problem solvers who were more concerned with solving everyday problems. Hampl loved being surrounded by the religious orders b/c she felt love b/c she exists. For Felix, the act of prayer is the act of love of thinking about God as the beloved. She liked the older religious b/c the act of prayer was just who they are and what they do day-in and day-out without any dogma attached to it. They believed life was a prayer while the Church was a place that gave conduit to life. The older religious could follow the rules that the Church enforced on them b/c they fell in love with God. Hampl paints religious orders as comfortable with good-byes b/c they know they will see the face of God in other faces in the future.

The 3rd Lateran council said the state had a duty to Christiandom to get rid of heretics by force as well as to get rid of lepers, thereby casting out any veneer of Christian charity. It used to be the "Mystical body of God" tied everyone to the whole of the created world in the "Great Chain of Being". By rejecting the rejection of the lepers, Francis states that everyone is important in the cosmos of God; thus Francis saved Christianity from Christiandom.

In Lourdes, the greatest commodity was the waters of Lourdes that wass the source of healing for the multitude of the sick. The waiter where she stayed said that Lourdes has become to commercial. Eating alone, she saw a happy couple, a good looking man in a wheel chair and homely wife who was his primary caretaker in love and she was amazed in such love. She was ashamed of her faith since he equivocally said she believed in God. She realized that Lourdes was not a miracle in and of itself; the miracle was the thousands of pilgrims who converged in this holy sight to be united in prayer in earthly communion that mimics the heavenly communion.

SILENCE:

Hampl sought the silent place of the monastery to find God rather than the incessant wanderings of the pilgrim. Thomas Merton thought the Eastern "religious" traditions had techniques to offer Western religion in transcending every day religious beliefs and become one with the Divine. In the silence of the Redwood monastery, she started to appreciate her companions and embodied the feeling of solidarity toward them. Hampl believed prayer to be a mixture of praise and a humble surrender to God and within it she discovers the all encompassing Grace of God in the form of the Holy Spirit.

Hampl sought to rebel against her Catholic upbringing only to be pulled again and again back into the fold. It seems to me that contemplative orders are natural allies for environmental groups since their impulse is to conserve nature as God's creation and gift to humanity. The sister told them that it is humanness who destroy the forrest. She decided that to pray is to surrender. Hampl felt her Catholic upbringing kept in her an innocence that was authentic to who she was as a person. Hampl realizes the strength of the contemplative order is prayer that links them to the rest of humanity in the spiritual domain.

While prayer focuses one's intention, silence sorts out the importance of things. Dogma is the only the expression of deeper symbol but if it is treated as the most important thing, it kills the symbol. The monastic orders are linked to the past via traditional living thus can talk of their founders as though they are one of them living in the present. A professor @ UC Berkley states that he is proud to be a Christian now that Christianity is no longer the dominant Faith tradition b/c @ this point it is no longer about dogma but of choice. He is looking for a contemplative path within his own faith tradition. Again the rosary is compared to meditation. Apparently, Thomas Merton had an affair towards the end of his life only to break up with the girl later on in his life. The priest states having a mystical experience is indescribable and one shouldn't try to explain it b/c one ultimately fails at it.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sections of this book soared with original vision and insight. Other parts read like amateurish "travel writing" and got bogged down in details about the people she was traveling with. The ending also left something to be desired. In the end I gave it four stars, probably because the subject matter itself was so captivating to me, the whole "once a Catholic always a Catholic thing," and because I share Hampl's fascination with the religious life. I appreciate a writer who can appreciate what it has to teach us, who seems to bemoan rather than celebrate the disappearance of a way of life that takes silence and spirit so seriously.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hampl's memoir and travel journal of her return to her childhood Catholicism via pilgrimage to Assisi, Lourdes, and a monastery in CA is beautifully written. It is personal and not theological, tied to practices more than experiences, and people even more than places. The descriptions I remember are not of the places she went, but the people she encountered there. They are direct, beautiful, sometimes brutal. Very much a delight.

[Jean Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I once had Patricia Hampl as a superb workshop leader in Prague several years ago, but it wasn't until recently I read this book. I won't soon forget the first chapter, and it's helped me in my life--it would be a spoiler to say how-- but it has to do with the inspiration of hopeful unafraid youth.
She's a marvelous wordsmith, and gets across her points in a trustworthy fashion without hoopla or exaggeration.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives people permission to have a belief system again. It celebrates the variety of the experience of traditional faith. It promotes a spiritual journey without false piety or pretense. Hampl's nubby allegories weave you into the story and, with her,help you become again a man or woman of the cloth.

[Willa Guadalupe Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book- not a book that is about a search for God but a book that is about the practice of prayer in life. I loved this book, the author spoke to my feelings about doubt & prayer, especially contemplative prayer & the reality of living a religious life. Awesome book, I will read it again.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written experience of a woman who goes to Italy in search of something, and through searching things past, discovers how St. Francis, and others still are able to speak to the people of today. Many humorous anecdotes of the typical English/Australian/American in Italy.

[Jrobertus]

a 40 something ex-catholic from st. paul goes on a trip through the life of st. francis of assisi, and other contemplative types. she is looking for deep meaning and as an ex cat myself i was interested in many of her observations.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, soul searching, and surprisingly gentle. Recommended if you are A) spiritual B) not spiritual C) sometimes Catholic D) from St Paul
E) Living in St Paul F) been on a pilgrimage yourself (however you want to define that). Pin a shell to your shirt and follow Hampl.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've heard Hampl credited with inventing the modern memoir--this is my favorite of her several examples of the genre. Hampl has a poet's sensibilities, and it shows in her work.

[Amy Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be a bit tedious. I'm curious now how I heard about it and don't recommend it.

[Astoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part travelogue, part reflection on the search for religious faith and experience in an intellectual life.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really, really good!

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the first few chapters. Found the last chapters difficult to get through.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As a child, I often felt an oddity inhabit me. It was related to silence, but it was not, as people sometimes speak of religion, a comfort. I was not aware of requiring comfort. This sensation of oddity was pleasure, a spreading delight. I lie on the bed in the flowery room my father has papered for me, and I am enfolded in the booming heart of the world as the chipped blue roller makes its way over the damp clay tennis court. The doves mourn in the morning, and everything is mixed up, and I can hear my mother saying I’m sleeping my life away and I smile."
If you were inhabited by "oddity" as a child (or an adult) or have always wanted to pull back the veil of "the real world, as we affectionately call it," this book is for you.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sections of this book soared with original vision and insight. Other parts read like amateurish "travel writing" and got bogged down in details about the people she was traveling with. The ending also left something to be desired. In the end I gave it four stars, probably because the subject matter itself was so captivating to me, the whole "once a Catholic always a Catholic thing," and because I share Hampl's fascination with the religious life. I appreciate a writer who can appreciate what it has to teach us, who seems to bemoan rather than celebrate the disappearance of a way of life that takes silence and spirit so seriously.

[Nikki Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poetic reflection on prayer, silence, and being, Virgin time is meant to be savored in morsels, not devoured. While not entire orthodox, Hampl is wonderfully insightful about both the monastic life and the life of prayer. Her writing is wry, colorful, inviting, and self-baring. Virgin Time is an appropriately open-ended journey, one which does not pretend to provide answers but welcomes questions and is captivating in its artful story-telling.

[Ginger Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hampl looks for the meaning of life in contemplative settings, monasteries and pilgrimages. She uses beautiful languages and descriptions of her search, with no definitive answers. Perhaps there are no answers to be found. While I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did Hampl’s Blue Arabesque, a favorite that I return to, Hampl always brings a critical eye to experience, in this case, to the role of religion in finding meaning.

[Carrie Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emptying bookcase reread #5. A dear person gave this to me years ago, and I so want to like this more. I am all for a contemplative life, but I guess I've never understood the wrangling through religion to get close to one.

[Stina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable writing.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written

[Patricia]

I bought this book about 6 years ago, I believe after reading Hampl's "The Stories I Could Tell." I had a little trouble getting into, perhaps because Hampl takes memoir to a different level in the way she explores memory. Soon, however, I was hooked. It was exactly her ability to dive vividly into a memory that became the thing I enjoyed most. Her exploration of the contemplative life brought me new understandings and in the end I found this book to be one of the best discussions of prayer that I've ever read.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read excerpts of this book in an anthology of spiritual memoirs and it interested me enough to read the entire book. Hampl's search for the contemplative life led her to Assisi, Lourdes and the southern California. I was amused by her descriptions of her fellow seekers, many of them members of orders. She accepts their foibles and notes their use of the word "we" as an example of living in community. I will see if Hampl has written anything else I might like to read.