Praise the Lord & Green the Roof

Praise the Lord and Green the Roof
By JOSEPH HUFF-HANNON
February 1, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/nyregion/thecity/01nuns.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/nyregion/thecity/01nuns.html

SISTER FAITH MARGARET, wearing a turquoise corduroy jacket, a flowered blouse and a wooden cross on a chain around her neck, set down a plate of freshly baked oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies on the table in the conference room of her convent on 113th Street in Morningside Heights.

Sister Claire Joy, attired in her order’s elective habit of navy robe and black rope belt, poured glasses of cold tap water. Six other men and women were seated around the table on this gray autumn afternoon, dressed in business casual.

Spread out in front of them were BlackBerrys, legal pads and architectural blueprints, along with a few samples of bricks of varying color and texture that the sisters were considering for their new “green” convent, to be built in West Harlem.

“This is the Palmetto brick?” asked Sister Claire Joy, rubbing her fingers along a sample from a South Carolina company. “I really love these crunchy-looking bricks myself.”

Sister Faith Margaret had a question.

“And are any of these local?” she asked. “We really want to use as many indigenous materials as we can.”

“I think most of these samples here are from Pennsylvania,” replied Stephen Byrns of BKSK Architects, the Chelsea firm that is handling the project. As his colleague Julie Nelson spread out the blueprint for the new convent’s chapel, members of the group proceeded to debate the relative merits of stone, bamboo or cork for the chapel floor, as well as of different kinds of energy-efficient heating and cooling systems.

In setting out to construct an environmentally advanced building to replace the trio of connected brownstones that they now call home, the Episcopal sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit were taking a giant step in their decade-long journey to weave ecological concerns into their daily ministry. While they have long tried to reduce their carbon footprint at 113th Street, the new convent, for which construction will begin in March, will help them be green from the ground up.

Of the 14 firms that the sisters had invited to submit proposals, BKSK ultimately wooed them with a plan that features rooftop gardens, water heated by solar power, rainwater collection, natural light and ventilation and the use of environmentally sensitive materials throughout.

BKSK is no stranger to this field; the firm has also designed a new green building at the Queens Botanical Garden and is drawing up plans for what will potentially be a new “eco-synagogue,” the Sephardic Synagogue, in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Now it is the sisters’ turn to go an even deeper shade of green, which raises the question: Why would a community of nuns, devoted as they presumably are to spiritual matters, take the relatively unusual step of embracing environmentalism so energetically?

“It’s a question of stewardship,” said Sister Faith Margaret, a Staten Island native. “Of responsibility.”

Letting the Sun Shine In

The green convent that the architects were discussing on this fall day seemed a far cry from their current convent, which is known as St. Hilda’s House. Yet a close look at St. Hilda’s reveals the same environmentalism that is shaping the new building.

Dotting the walls of the conference room — a long space filled with a hodgepodge of slightly faded furniture and painted with a thick coat of cream-colored paint — were framed paintings of rivers, forests and planet earth, along with assorted wildlife scenes. Underneath fluorescent lights, copies of National Geographic, Scientific American, Solar Today and World Ark sat neatly organized on a bookshelf, next to a slim book bearing the title “Mainstreaming Renewable Energy in the 21st Century.”

The site of the new building, on Convent Avenue at 150th Street, is currently an empty lot. But if all goes as planned, then by the spring of 2010, the eight nuns of the Community of the Holy Spirit, most of whom are in their 50s and 60s, will be living in a home that reflects the environmental ethos that has become a central tenet of their lives.

The sisters approached Columbia University about buying the sisters’ current building, and Columbia has also taken over the complex task of obtaining the construction permits required for the new convent. Although neither the sisters nor Columbia would cite specific costs, the nuns did say that the new building will be entirely financed by the sale of the old one, with money left over to create an endowment for their order.

When the work is completed, after 57 years in the shadow of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine a few blocks away, the sisters will have accomplished their mission of scaling down both their space and their ecological footprint.

Architectural renderings of the new structure show a modern, four-story light-gray brick building. One of the two rooftop gardens, where vegetables and other plants will be grown, sits directly above the nuns’ bedrooms, or cells, helping to cool them in summer. Many of the internal surfaces will be made of recycled concrete and glass, and the two-story chapel, which is set off in the back of the building, will have clear glass skylights to allow abundant sunshine to filter in.

The sisters have had plenty of practice applying their ecological principles at St. Hilda’s. They compost food scraps, recycle bottles and cans, use energy-efficient light bulbs and eat organic produce, most of it from an upstate farm. Sister Faith Margaret, Sister Claire Joy and Sister Leslie speak at conferences and gatherings about “how to green your life.”

The decision to move into a more environmentally sound home was the fruit of a running conversation the sisters have had for years, as their commitment to sustainability grew and as their current convent aged. Sister Faith Margaret, writing in the group’s charmingly named quarterly newsletter, AweWakenings, told of a vision she had that nicely summed up the ultimate goal: It was an image of Sister Mary Christabel, the community’s former superior, sitting by the garden on the new roof, her face lifted to the sun.

Before that day comes, however, more practical matters are pending.

“Sister Catherine Grace is still advocating for compost toilets,” Sister Faith Margaret told the architects at that fall meeting. “What do we think of that?”

“Well, I’ve done a lot of demonstrations of the compost toilets at the Queens Botanical Garden,” Ms. Nelson replied. “I’d be happy to give instructions.”

Corn Bread and Sunday Chats

The earth may loom large at St. Hilda’s, but like other religious communities or orders, the sisters have a deep spiritual life as well.

At 5:15 p.m. on a fall Sunday, a bell rang out softly in the convent announcing the call to vespers, the evening prayer service. Max, the sisters’ yellow Labrador, was among the first to arrive at the chapel, accompanied by Sister Mary Elizabeth, who lighted the two large candles that framed a brass cross standing upright against one wall. A tall organ made of mottled wood sat in a corner.

As the bell rang again, Sister Jerolynn Mary shuffled in on her walker and sat in a front pew, and Sister Mary Christabel was helped to her seat by a home health aide. The lightly worn prayer books sitting on the ledge in front of the women were open to Psalm 110. At 5:30 the bell rang a third time, and the sisters began to pray.

After the service, the sisters slowly filed out of the chapel and headed to the basement dining room for a meal of tomato salad, cooked cabbage, parsnip and beet goulash, and corn bread and, for dessert, a freshly baked chocolate cake and fresh strawberries.

On most nights the sisters eat in silence, but Sunday dinner is a chattier affair and has been ever since 1952, when St. Hilda’s House was incorporated by the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

The community was originally founded that year as a religious order for women in the Episcopal Church. The sisters founded and taught in St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s Episcopal day schools, a block away, as well as the Melrose School in Brewster, N.Y., north of the city. They later expanded their work to include other forms of teaching and serving God in the world, including setting aside space for out-of-town guests at the convent, working at soup kitchens around the city, and leading retreats and quiet days. They also minister to the many “associates,” people in the community who come to the sisters seeking spiritual direction.

Then, about 10 years ago, the sisters began to discuss a mission to care for the environment. They may embrace environmental concerns more tightly than do many other religious orders, but it is their religion, they say, that was their bridge to a green life.

“We began talking more deeply amongst ourselves about how spirituality and ecology are linked, how we could more fully appreciate that the universe is a creation of God,” Sister Faith Margaret said, speaking in the hallways near the front door, which is lined on both sides with ferns, philodendron and other plants. “Some days I get up in the morning when the trees are about to pop, and I think, ‘How did God decide all of this?’ ”

One sister in particular, Helena Marie, had been a pioneer in prodding the nuns to make a priority of the environment in both their ministry and their way of life. Although Sister Helena Marie now lives with three other nuns at the community’s convent in Brewster, where the sisters run an organic operation called Bluestone Farm, her influence remains.

As with any community seeking to change old ways, transformation did not take place overnight.

“When she first started bringing it up,” Sister Faith Margaret said of Sister Helena Marie’s concerns, “some of us would roll our eyes. But she was very persistent. And at some point she broke through in a way that got us to think differently, and we started to do little bits at a time.”

Sister Helena Marie concurred.

“Let’s just say it didn’t go over too well at first,” she said from Bluestone Farm. “I think they thought it was too fluffy, and too crazy. And when I was pushing this idea — 10 years ago, 15 years ago — it wasn’t the thing to do.

“There was a big split in the community between people who wanted to have our ministry focus on healing the earth, and those who wanted to focus on healing people,” she added. “But for us, focusing on healing the earth is part of caring for people.”

Gradually, the sisters got greener. A few years ago, they sold their minivan and joined Zipcar, the car-sharing company. They began serving fair trade coffee to guests and growing vegetables in their backyard. Sister Faith Margaret and Sister Leslie began leading spiritual retreats around the country that offered a mix of prayer, silence and discussions about the environment.

“I remember the phase when some of the sisters went vegan,” said Sandy Wilson, a member of the Alexander String Quartet, a San Francisco group that performed at a fund-raising concert for the convent in November and whose members stay with the sisters at least once a year when they work in New York. “I’ve certainly been influenced by the sisters. It seems like now they’re thinking about how to approach this next chapter, the sustainability of themselves.”

That, said Sister Faith Margaret, is exactly the goal. The community hopes not to hit people over the head with its practice, she explained, but rather to live an example that trickles down. That example even extends to the clothes they wear. “We are working on trying to find a more earth-friendly habit,” Sister Helena Marie said. “We’re looking into a company that makes habits that are 100 percent organic cotton, and which uses labor practices that are fair.”

Going Organic and Wasting Little

A week after the meeting with the architects, Sister Claire Joy, who is responsible for the convent’s food, could be found pushing a shopping cart over to the Broadway Presbyterian Church two blocks away. There, during the harvest season, she picks up the convent’s weekly produce from Roxbury Farm, an organic farm in Kinderhook, N.Y. Earlier that day, after morning prayers, she had bought organic eggs and milk at the farmers’ market on Broadway near 114th Street.

In the church basement, where the produce is displayed, Sister Claire Joy examined and bagged the medley of parsnips, carrots, butternut squash, potatoes, beets, cabbage, kale and apples that were stacked in the middle of the room. Then she headed back to the convent’s kitchen.

As the sister with what she calls an “undeserved reputation” as the house gourmet, she then started thinking about recipes for the week. In meal planning, as in so much of the nuns’ daily life, environmentalism looms large.

“I made some delicious puff pastries with kale and peppers this week,” Sister Claire Joy said. The sisters try to use every last bit of food they buy, she explained, “to make sure nothing goes to waste.”

As Sister Claire Joy planned her menus, Sister Elise entered the kitchen sipping a mug of hot chocolate. The order’s longest-standing member, the 87-year-old Sister Elise has lived in the community for more than 55 years. But she is not overly emotional at the prospect of moving to a new, greener home.

“I really don’t have my roots set down here in this house — I’ll be happy to live anywhere,” she said. “I already have a reservation in another place.”