The Real World

On Tuesday 20th June 2006 Trinity was featured on Radio 4s The Real World, a program where Christian and Buddhist monks and nuns leave their communities to live in the 'real world' for a short while. The synopsis for this edition read Sister Yolanda from the Poor Clares joins a family on a Liverpool housing estate. Poverty for her is voluntary - for the family there is no choice.

Download the programme as an MP3

From the minister

Out of the blue we were approached by a lady who was producing a series of Programmes for Radio 4, in which people who usually spend their time in monasteries were to spend a couple of days in a very different environment. The plan was for a 'Poor Clare Nun' to spend time at Trinity, taking part in Kidz Klub and getting to know a local family.

So it was that we welcomed not one but two poor Clares - Sisters Yolanda, and her 'minder' Sister Julianna. The programme focussed on the developing relationship between Sister Yolanda, and one of our Kidz Klub Mums. The first day involved lunch, a time getting to know each other, a walk to pray at the spot where there had been a drive-by shooting the previous day, a walk to Park View school to collect the son of the family involved (during which I am ashamed to say that various crude suggestions were made by ignorant youths), and Kidz Klub. The sisters must have been shattered, having been bombarded by such a range of experiences far removed from monastery life, but even so they returned the next day!

Sister Yolanda spent most of the day with our Kidz Klub Mum, sharing their very different lives and experiences. After lunch we drove to McGoldrick Park, to the spot where Anthony Walker was murdered, as the sisters wished to say prayers there. So five of us prayed and sang 'Amazing Grace' to the bemusement of passers-by. The recording was completed to the producer's satisfaction, and there was just time for the sisters' hire car to be broken into - welcome to life as it is in 2006!

The programme series is called 'The Real World', but I couldn't help wonder if our world of verbal abuse, hostility and pain is in fact the unreal world, and the sisters' life of prayer, community and service is closer to reality?

Phil Clark

There is an article by the producer of the programme, Kirsten Dwight (on the left in the picture above) on the Magazine section of the BBC website.