Episode Ninety-One: The Byte-Sister Merry Peter

Sister Merry Peter is a nun of Perpetual Indulgence. Created in the midst of conflict and turmoil, the nuns monitor and watch, support those struggling and most of all? Spread joy. In this shorter episode hear how Sister Merry has both witnessed miracles, but created them as well.

Transcript

Welcome to this week's episode,

Episode 91 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

I have a really fun treat for you coming up in the next few weeks.

I had the really sweet opportunity to interview several of the nuns of Perpetual Indulgence from the San Francisco chapter.

And if you've never heard of them before,

On their website it says,

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a leading edge order of queer and trans nuns.

We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty.

And they've been in San Francisco since Easter Sunday,

1979.

In this episode,

I get to interview Sister Mary Peter.

And Sister Mary Peter was such a joy to interview.

And in this interview,

You're going to find that we use the word joy a lot because essentially for Sister Mary Peter,

Spreading joy,

Being a conduit for joy,

That's what it's all about.

On Sister Mary Peter's blurb about just who she is,

Sister Mary Peter says,

An early inspiration for her,

A sign perhaps that my childhood was shaped by nuns,

Remarkable women who did the hard work despite the fact that men often reaped the public glory.

My nuns were working class girls for whom religious life offered an escape from oppression and a chance at self-expression and new horizons.

I wanted to be like them but thought as a boy,

I never could.

Well,

In this interview,

You get to hear how Sister Mary Peter became the nun that she always wanted to be.

And you'll hear about miracles,

Two miracles that happened for Sister Mary Peter,

Both of them very beautiful and both of them worth hearing.

So now,

Here's episode 91 in my interview with Sister Mary Peter.

Early on in San Francisco,

We had a bar called the Cafe,

Which was upstairs right off Market Street.

It was kind of a boy bar,

All the hot guys would go there to dance.

And on a Saturday night,

Sister Gina Tonic and I went out to do what we call bar ministry,

Which is just show up,

Raise money for charity and do glitter blessings.

And we were doing our work.

And then something was calling me to the center of the dance floor.

And I could see on the dance floor,

This real hot young couple,

Thin blonde kid,

His partner dancing wildly.

I thought,

I need to go there.

So I squeezed my way through the crowd.

And the young man was clearly strung out,

Like definitely on meth.

But I stood there motionless until he finally kind of saw that I was there.

And then whatever was,

I don't know,

I still to this day don't know what it was,

But I took the glitter and I put it on his forehead.

And I said,

The man you are with is not the man you need.

And we have need of you and you need to wake up.

So for the 40th anniversary of the order,

We gathered people together in San Francisco.

And one of the things we did was we had an outdoor ceremony where members from all over the world came together to create what we call Sister Blessing Mix or Glitter Mix or Fairy Dust.

That was a tradition that was introduced to me from the fairies that I brought into the order.

And what it is,

Is creating a mix of elements that have something to do with some powerful energy.

So the ashes of sacred fires,

Waters from holy wells,

Flowers that were exchanged in grief or blessing or wedding or death,

The ashes of loved ones,

Sand from holy beaches,

Dirt from sacred places.

So all that stuff gets mixed together.

And for me,

Originally where I just took glitter and put it on people's heads,

Well,

Now we use this mix.

And we've been percolating this for over 20 years.

So people all came together with their elements.

We opened a circle together and then I just invited people to come up and add their bit to the mix.

It lasted for over two and a half hours.

And what happened was people came forward.

And it was like one of those tent revivals where people give a testimony and that just raises the energy.

And then another person comes forward and tells a story and then the energy gets even higher and builds and builds and builds.

And the diversity of things people brought,

One in particular,

First Nations nun came forward and said,

When I was growing up,

My mother was the life of the party and the one everyone on the reservation loved.

But to me,

She was always mean and bitter and criticizing me.

She's passed.

Now what I understand is to have so much light to give to others,

She had to have a place to put her shadows.

And unfortunately,

She chose me.

So that got us all.

And what this person said is,

So I'm bringing my mother's ashes.

And I'm going to put them into this mix.

Because what I want from this moment is to claim the same light work that my mother had,

But to release myself from the need to put my shame on anyone else,

And then poured these into the mix and like this cloud of dust rose.

All of us were just focused on this,

You know,

And maybe 80 people came forward to do that.

Flowers from their gardens,

Ashes of loved ones,

Pets,

Glitter,

Mixes that had been mixed in Berlin or in Edinburgh or Toronto or Montreal or Mexico or Japan.

And then at the end,

Some beautiful people in our community that we call heroes,

Some of our founders,

Some of the nuns from abroad all came together and with their hands,

Mixed all this in a big mixing bowl,

A washing basin.

And you just could see the energy and the clouds coming from that.

And while we're doing this,

All these little urchins,

These little street kids started gathering and so we started handing vials of this to the street kids.

And for me,

That was a full circle moment,

Right?

Because those are the kids that made me real.

Well,

There they were,

And they were like,

Peddling off into the city with this stuff.

And then what we did is we invited everyone to come and take some home.

And so Germans,

Scots,

French,

Swiss,

Italian,

Mexican,

Canadian,

Scooping this stuff up and you felt like this energy web just starting to go,

You know,

Ripple outward into the world.

That's a moment of profound magic,

I think for me,

I will never forget.

Early on in San Francisco,

We had a bar called the Cafe,

Which was upstairs right off Market Street.

And it was kind of a boy bar,

All the hot guys would go there to dance.

And on a Saturday night,

Sister Gina Tonic and I went out to do what we call bar ministry,

Which is just show up,

Raise money for charity and do glitter blessings.

And we were doing our work.

And then something was calling me to the center of the dance floor.

And I could see on the dance floor,

This real hot young couple,

Thin blonde kid,

His partner,

Dancing wildly.

I thought I need to go there.

So just squeezed my way through the crowd.

And the young man was clearly strung out,

Like definitely on meth.

But I stood there motionless until he finally kind of saw that I was there.

And then whatever was I don't know,

I still to this day don't know what it was.

But I took the glitter and I put it on his forehead.

And I said,

The man you are with is not the man you need.

And we have need of you and you need to wake up.

And he he froze and fell like people do when they're,

You know,

In spirit.

And I picked him up,

Of course,

Because my coach and made sure he was okay.

And then he went back to dancing.

And you know,

I went on my way.

Didn't hear anything.

Two years later,

I was at a fairy gathering in the northwest outside of Seattle.

And a really beautiful drag friend from Vancouver came up and said,

Sister,

Sister,

There's someone here that really wants to meet you.

I'm like,

Okay,

All right,

Sure,

We'll get together.

And then at the lunch table,

She brought this young person over.

And they said,

Do you remember me?

And I said,

Yeah,

You look really familiar.

He said,

Well,

You saw me at the cafe two years ago,

And you put this stuff on my head.

And I don't remember much.

But I remember in the hotel,

The next morning,

I woke up and I went to the bathroom to pee.

And as I was peeing,

I looked at my face,

And I saw this stuff on my forehead.

And I burst out sobbing.

And then I realized I needed to get out of there.

And so while my boyfriend,

Who was also my pimp,

Was sleeping,

I packed my stuff up,

Got a cab,

And I headed home.

And I went into rehab.

And I'm clean now.

And I'm two years sober.

And I just want you to know what you did.

I think it speaks to the power of simply being present,

And allowing yourself to be a channel for light.

And so for me,

This blessing idea,

You know,

The idea of joy,

I talked to people,

Kirsten,

Joy is different than happiness.

I didn't take a vow to spread happiness.

Because happiness is is ephemeral.

It's fleeting.

Yet you got your paycheck,

You got a new job,

Yet you're dating someone,

You had good sex.

And then a day later,

Something happens and you're miserable again.

Joy for me is a crucible in which you pour every experience,

The happiness,

The tragedy,

The anger,

The frustration,

And you turn up the heat,

Just like an alchemical bowl,

And you fire that up,

And you test it.

And then what's left when that all burns away is this gold,

Powerful,

Strong alloy that you then take out in your life.

And for a nun,

You know,

My vows were to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt through perpetual manifestation.

And what that means to me is I show up every day as a nun,

Whether I'm manifested or what we call in face or in habit,

Or I'm just in my day clothes.

Whether I'm at a public event,

Or in a personal relationship,

I show up,

I try to be authentic.

And I try to make space.

And then if I'm offering my life to joy,

It means I'm offering my life,

All of it.

I'm not a caricature.

I'm not a role.

I'm not role playing.

I'm not hiding.

Everything in me shows up when I'm a nun,

Which means you see my ego,

You see my vulnerability,

You see my insecurity,

As well as my confidence and my strength and my humor.

And seeing that,

And knowing that I can stand in whatever you're throwing at me without judgment in kind of this equanimity,

Like,

You're having a good day,

You're having a bad day,

You're an asshole,

You're lovely.

I'm there,

No judgment,

That creates space.

And hopefully in that space,

You tap into that joy inside you.

When I think about it,

I'm just built towards hope.

I'm oriented towards joy.

And as long as I'm setting the coffee maker,

I know I'm still on that path.

So I'm not going away.

And neither are the people I love.

And neither are the people we love.

And we will be heard.

And we will share the table.

And we will make the world a better place.

Thank you so much for listening to Episode 91 of Bite-Sized Blessings and my conversation with the joyful Sister Mary Peter,

For more information on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

I'm going to have a link under the episode show notes.

Be sure to check them out.

I'm very positive they'll bring some joy and delight to your day.

I need to thank everyone who's left a rating or written a review.

I'm so very grateful.

Those ratings and reviews help others find us.

And if you haven't yet done so,

You know who I'm talking to.

Consider doing either or both.

But I'm very grateful to those who have already done so.

I need to thank the creators of the music used for this episode.

Frank Schroeder,

Sasha End,

Alexander Nakarada,

Fat Sounds,

And Winnie the Moog.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to books,

Artists,

Playlists,

And other groovy things I think will lighten and brighten your day.

And can you believe it?

We have reached Season 10.

I can't believe it.

Thank you for joining me along the way and listening to these conversations.

They've certainly brought a lot of joy and happiness into my life.

And so I hope they're doing that with yours as well.

So thank you for listening.

And here's my one request,

Be like Sister Mary Peter.

Spread joy.

Spread delight.

Spread the idea that we can all come together,

Be at the same table,

Include everyone,

And make this world a better,

More joyful place.