Sister Eunice X Email Address Born the first time? March 8, the same as Cyd Charisse, Micky Dolenz, Allen Hale, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Freddy Prinze Jr., Aidan Quinn, Lynn Redgrave, and a bunch of other people you've never heard of. The year? Nun of your business! I was born in a small beach town near the Kennedy Space Center in Central Florida, and I eventually grew up in Orlando. My father was a physician and my mother was a nurse, and their choices for professions impressed upon me the importance of helping people. Born again? I became fully professed and took my vows as Sr. Eunice X on August 12, 2008. Your Family Tree? Sr. Missionary Position to Sr. Merry Peter to Sr. Bella de Ball (my Mother, my official sponsor as a Noviciate). Sr. Barbi Mitzvah is my Big Sister in the Order. What is your lay occupation? I'm a research scientist in pharmaceutical discovery. My therapeutic focus has included oncology, auto-immune disorders, diabetes and obesity, Alzheimer's disease, HIV/AIDS, and antimicrobial agents with an emphasis on the treatment of resistant strains. Describe the path leading to your Calling to the Order. I came to maturity during the Regan '80s, in a very conservative community and at a time when being gay was equated with God's wrath in the form of HIV/AIDS. Faggots in big cities like New York and San Francisco were getting sick and dying fast, and now the evil was even spreading into respectable communities like ours. I had popped out of the womb infatuated with the shirtless surfer boys walking about town, but long before understanding these feelings I knew to keep my mouth shut and my eyes averted. Up through high school, I hid behind the trappings of straight adolescence, and I said and did a lot of things I wish I hadn't. During college, some frat boys hung a "fag" in effigy from a tree in the center of campus. While the president of a different fraternity, I presided over a divisive and vitriolic debate regarding whether a pledging freshman accused of being gay should be expelled for being a freak. I kept my head down, and worked hard to conceal the nature of my own, weekend sexploits. By the time I reached graduate school, I had finally had enough. After so many years of lying and hiding and wishing I could be like "normal people", I made the decision to stand tall and vowed to never again stand in silence while bigots hurled insults against my inadvertent community. The road to Pride was a rocky one, and one paved by the good intentions of those who had suffered before me. They have my gratitude. Fast-forward 22 years, and my loving partner of 13 years and I are sharing a home in the Castro. We are donating money to charities and occasionally volunteering, but I am looking for some far more meaningful way to give back and to serve my community. And then the Sisters bring Revival Bingo to Most Holy Redeemer. On that first night I am hooked, and I know just who I am meant to be. But I never imagined the smallest percentage of what wonders Sisterhood would bring to me during my two year process of becoming Eunice X. No matter how it is explained, without direct experience one cannot imagine what it means to practice as a nun The Ministry of Perpetual Indulgence. I am blessed by Fate. Explain your interpretation of The Ministry of Perpetual Indulgence. Individuals should be encouraged to live their lives in any way which brings them the most satisfaction and the most joy, without any guilt or shame, and as long as they are doing no harm to others. Do you believe in miracles? Only one: altruism. And what other principles guide your practice as a nun? Do as much good and simultaneously as little harm as possible in the world Strive at all times be as honest as possible with yourself and with others Remember that everyone has something to bring to the table Final thoughts? I believe that the essence of humanity is to see beyond oneself and take responsibility for the welfare of others. We shall all be outlived by our deeds, whatever their nature. What we accomplish for others stands far beyond what we accomplish for ourselves Photo courtesy Sonya Revell « Return to Meet The Sisters page.