In 1973, 18-year-old Alice Miesnik, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, came to New Jersey to join the Felician Sisters in Lodi and pursue a calling of religious devotion and teaching.
By 1998, Miesnik had left the order, found a new identity and a life partner — and a new home in Maplewood — all while maintaining her Catholic faith.
Nonetheless, the 10 years following her departure from the Felician Sisters in 1987 were “very dark years” said Miesnik, who has chronicled her journey in a new memoir Another Way: A Journey of Faith, Love, and Identity. She was sustained through that time by the Marist Brothers who hired her to teach at Marist High School in Bayonne, where she worked for 33 years.
“When I left the convent at 32, I was still 18 in terms of knowing how to navigate the world, how to navigate relationships. I thought I was bisexual,” said Miesnik. “So I figured, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll date men and that will keep everybody around me happy.’ And it never happened. And I thought to myself, ‘Okay, I guess this is how it’s going to be.'”
After a difficult 10 years, Miesnik was finally finding her way in life and in love.
“In those years, I was in the classroom and that was good for me because I could do that on automatic pilot. And I was in therapy. Those were the things that helped me.”
Then Miesnik met her future life partner Rosa, shortly after buying a house in the Hilton neighborhood of Maplewood.
“I was kind of ready. She also had met me far along her therapeutic chain. And so we were both ready for relationships. We met through mutual friends, who decided to get some people together. The funny story is that I wasn’t the intended person for her — another person was — but the fates aligned and we’ve been together ever since. It’s almost 27 years.”
Miesnik noted that Rosa was hoping to find a partner who “would enliven her faith at that time. And there I was, an ex nun!”
Maplewood provided affordable housing, an easy commute to Bayonne, and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which has long enjoyed a reputation as a Catholic parish that leans into love and acceptance, helmed in recent years by pastor Fr. Jim Worth who has invited speakers such as Fr. James Martin, author of Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity.
The parish’s motto is “All are welcome,” Miesnik noted.
“And they mean it. It doesn’t really matter if you’re whatever gender, if you’re trans, if you’re autistic, there are no issues. We’re just people that God has created and we love everybody. It’s true. And it’s felt in practice.”
On October 26, Miesnik herself was the invited speaker, as Fr. Jim interviewed her about her memoir and Miesnik signed copies for attendees. The book launch, said Miesnik, was “beyond expectation,” attracting a “wonderful” large audience and serving as the first of a series of events to be sponsored by St. Joe’s called “Feeding Your Faith.”
Another Way is a delightful read — easy, direct, clear-eyed, full of compassion and humor — like Miesnik herself. There is nothing salacious in her decision to leave the convent or realize her identity. She writes that the convent’s discouragement and suspicion of “particular friendships” actually “taught me that I was not built to be alone. I didn’t crave a lover so much as I craved a significant other, someone who could help me create a sense of family.” In the conclusion, Miesnik writes of finding the church “life-giving” despite it’s considerable flaws. “That is partly because I have found a local church where all are welcome. Our way of being church is kind, inclusive and loving.”
Miesnik is also grateful to Theresa Burns and her Memoir Writing Class at the South Orange-Maplewood Adult School.
“Theresa Burns deserves a lot of credit for what’s happening for me,” said Miesnik. “I joined in the midst of COVID and it was all on Zoom. And she has usually 10 people in the group. She assigns prompts on a weekly basis. And people come in with their writing. We take turns reading and getting feedback from one another. I was very encouraged by the other people in the group and by her. And she kept saying, ‘I think there’s a book here. I think you could do this.'”
Still, “pushing the button to publish was tough, because it’s a personal story and putting that all out there. But I thought there’s lots of pieces in there that people can identify with — depression, the Catholic Church, having three older brothers. …”
Miesnik said writing about her parents, who were “complex individuals,” was difficult, but “my one brother called me after the book was out, and he read it. We were comparing stories, and I said, ‘Just tell me, Jim. I want to know, did I get Mom right?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely.'”
Ultimately, finishing and reading the book was very satisfying, said Miesnik: “One of the things that I have found fascinating, now that the book is finished and out and I have reread it from cover to cover for the launch, I realized it was all true.” She laughed. “I felt like when it was all said and done that I really identify with what I put down on paper.”
Miesnik stressed that she is “not someone who’s out to proselytize.”
“I don’t want to convert anybody. I simply want people to know that it’s our responsibility as human beings to find our path. We have to find our way to be the best human we possibly can be. That’s a moral responsibility. If we aren’t seeking that out, then it’s going to be really hard to make the world a better place. I think it happens one person at a time. And the way we do it is simply by looking for the best way possible for each of us. That’s really my bottom line. I think my book is hopeful and that message of hope goes a long way with helping people find their own way.”
Miesnik will be discussing Another Way: A Journey of Faith, Love, and Identity again on Sunday, December 14, at the Maplewood Ethical Culture Society, 516 Prospect Street, Maplewood, New Jersey 07040.
For more information or to order a copy, visit amazon.com/author/ajmiesnik.
