In 2018, filmmaker Bing Liu drew attention to my hometown of Rockford, Illinois with his autobiographical documentary Minding the Gap. The movie drew near-universal acclaim and an Oscar nomination for its sensitive portrayal of masculinity and trauma, and of being a young person in an economically depressed Rust Belt town.
That same year saw the DVD release of another documentary filmed in Rockford, one I thought might feel even closer to home. Chosen: Custody of the Eyes was filmed by a novice nun in a community of Poor Clare Colettine sisters, a walled-off monastery that’s right in the middle of the city. Directed and edited by Abbie Reese, the film is a record of daily life and reflections by “Heather / Sister Amata” (both pseudonyms), capturing moments from her first few years of cloistered life.
Growing up Catholic in Rockford, I knew about the Poor Clares and saw the monastery from the bus window, as it was near my elementary school. I didn’t meet many nuns at church when I was a kid, but the idea of “vocations” was common in religious ed classes and, later, youth group — the idea that becoming a priest or a nun was a specific calling from God, one that anyone could receive and must follow. The thought of such a calling kind of scared me, and I secretly hoped it wouldn’t happen to me.
Then, it happened to one of my closest friends. Towards the end of college, a friend I’d known since elementary school shared that she was planning to become a nun, that she had indeed felt it as a spiritual calling. I interviewed her for a class project, and she talked about resistance to her choice from people who thought a religious life would be a waste. She had always been a high achiever and incredibly hardworking — champion runner, valedictorian of our class — and had turned down a grad school scholarship once she decided to become a nun.
In the years since, I’ve visited her religious order in Chicago a few times, including to attend her final vows. They’re in a neighborhood hard hit by systemic disinvestment and gun violence, and they operate a food pantry as well as hosting outreach programs and gatherings. My friend now teaches grade school students, and has managed a years-long construction project to restore the church and adjacent buildings that had previously stood empty.
At the time I’d interviewed her, she was still searching for a specific community to join, but she knew she didn’t want to be cloistered or silent. “I would fail at that,” I remember her saying matter-of-factly. The only other young person I’d known to enter religious life was a leader from my high school youth group, who had left it and gotten married by the time I met her; I heard from someone else that she “couldn’t take” the silence of the order she’d been in.
There is something compelling, though, about the contemplative, ritualistic life depicted in Chosen: Custody of the Eyes. Much of the film is composed of wordless sequences of nuns doing chores or praying, either in long static takes or tracking shots from Sister Amata’s point of view, that emphasize the quiet and meditative rhythms of their life. Sister Amata talks to the camera about the effect of their silence and isolation, the ability to cultivate what she calls an “interior stillness.” Watching the movie, I compared the Poor Clares’ life to contemplative practices like those of Tibetan Buddhism. Was it so different from those traditions?
One difference, of course, is the Catholic Church. The monastery in Chosen feels very self-contained, but there are occasional reminders of the overarching hierarchy. Sister Amata also expresses ideas on camera that to me felt distinctly Catholic and off-putting. Sacrifice and self-discipline are part of monastic life by definition, but when she says, “I’ll be able to purge myself of things I haven’t been able to control,” I recognized a recurring feeling of being sinful and unworthy. In one scene, a more senior nun tells the novice about a practice of “living every day as if it were our last,” making me think of the deep acceptance of death that exists in some spiritual traditions and is, to my mind, healthy. But the nun goes on to explain that living as if it were your last day means trying extra hard to be perfect, in case you’re about to face the ultimate judgment.
The movie made me think of the contradictory message that Christianity offers: that God loves us unconditionally, made us exactly who we are, and is eternally forgiving; and that we are sinful, must constantly try to resist temptation, and must repent our mistakes. The two ideas are intertwined: Even though we are unworthy and full of sin, God still loves us and will always forgive us. I don’t know if that dynamic is inherently abusive, but I think it lends itself to abuse.
Chosen doesn’t allude to the Catholic Church’s own sins, but its intimate view mostly makes the monastery feel set apart. The church’s hierarchy is completely male, so (I assume) the nuns must have regular contact with men just to be able to attend Mass. But they are led internally by the Mother Abbess, and seem to take care of most of their own needs — a nun wearing a straw hat over her habit drives a big tractor mower around the lawn; another nun trowels cement to create a gravestone for a fellow sister who has died. Sister Amata acknowledges the difficulty of 20 adults living together, but also speaks with fondness about their community. Their silence is not total, and there are scenes of them being playful, like a theology-themed Jeopardy game where one nun loses a round because she forgets to answer in the form of a question. (The clue is “the two types of punishment for sin.” Fun!)
Unlike Sister Amata, my friend the nun never seems to chastise herself or worry about being perfect. Each time I’ve seen her in the last ten years, I’ve been struck by how consistently she is herself — how happy and sure she is in the work she’s doing, how much she’s using her talents, how she laughs a lot and still teases the rest of our friend group. She didn’t have to give up running, which was always part of her identity; she not only does the Chicago Marathon every year as a fundraiser for the mission, but decided to run it on a treadmill this year when the official race was canceled. It truly feels like she’s in the right place, where she’s meant to be.
In the movie, the Poor Clares talk openly about their choice to leave mainstream society, and the fact that many people don’t understand. “I think we’re very aware that people question, how could hiddenness be a value?” one of the nuns says to the camera. “I think we would ask the question in reverse: Why would exposure be a value?”
“Exposure” is the opposite of “enclosure,” a term the nuns use for being cloistered, but it doesn’t only mean participating in public life — it also means making your private life known publicly. One of the best things about the documentary is that the sisters openly engage with what it means to have their hidden world observed and recorded. A nun talks about the fact that being filmed is natural to most people now because of smartphones and social media. But it’s entirely new for the nuns, especially those who have been cloistered for years, and they sometimes turn away from the camera or jump in surprise when they notice it. In one scene, the filmmaker Abbie Reese visits the monastery and is told that allowing it to be filmed is a “once in a lifetime” exception, one they’re only making because they trust Reese.
In that same scene, though, the senior nun says that they liked being on video, because it was an opportunity to publicize their calling and their beliefs. Even having chosen an intensely private life with almost no outside contact, they have some desire to share their story with strangers.
It made me reflect on the title Chosen: Custody of the Eyes. It refers to a Catholic concept I had never heard of but that apparently comes from St. Francis of Assisi, about being mindful of what you choose to look at and give your attention to. Early on, Sister Amata cites “custody of the eyes” as she talks about being new and gradually learning what’s expected of her. She says she watches the other nuns for cues while not wanting to stare openly, but also feels like the others are watching her as she learns through trial and error. (Moments later, she jokes “I’m being watched” when she notices the monastery’s dog looking at her through a window.)
In today’s world, participating in public life means being seen, being watched. It means being able to share your face and voice, and your most intimate thoughts and experiences, with anyone who might happen across them. But it also means your face and voice and thoughts and actions are recorded constantly, without you actively choosing to share them — on surveillance cameras and devices, through online data collection, and through other personal information that’s either publicly available or stored in systems that can be breached.
Again, as the nun asks, “Why would exposure be a value?” Early in the movie, Sister Amata uses the phrase “flashing lights” as a shorthand for the world shut out by the monastery’s walls. By participating in the project, she’s bringing some of that modern life inside, inserting not only the presence of the camera but also the eyes of an audience who may not understand this way of life. But the Poor Clares still have some control over how they are seen, and what they choose to share. Abbie Reese is shown being asked to bleep out the names of the sisters, which does happen throughout the movie. In another scene, a title card explains that the nun filming herself has intentionally kept her face out of focus.
It’s a reminder that there is something to learn from people who radically opt out of contemporary society. The contrast between their lifestyle and ours can highlight the parts of life that are choices, and encourage us to opt out on a smaller scale in order to live in a way we consider meaningful.
Which brings me back to Rockford, and those monastery walls. I’m still somewhat skeptical of the Poor Clares staying shut inside their compound while surrounded by a part of town that, like my friend’s neighborhood in Chicago, has faced serious disinvestment and high rates of violence. (Only once in the film is the monastery shown from outside the walls, and I wonder if the director intentionally chose footage with a police siren in the background.) There is something perverse about being right in the middle of a city while having no relationship with its people or its problems — but then, it’s just a more extreme version of how many people live, including me if I’m not careful.
There is so much need and suffering right now, but it’s easier than ever to stay inside and not think about it. Getting to see inside a cloistered world in this movie, and thinking of my friend the nun handing out food, and then thinking about the other people I know who put their values into practice, reminded me of the kind of life I want to choose.