inf-site/works/nonsense/the-convent-of-st-selvage/text

The Convent of St. Selvage sat surrounded on one side by a low hill covered in crabgrass and fragments of limestone and on the other by a sliver of a seaside town known primarily as the second-most-convenient gas station on the freeway between Ovejaville and Santa Alesia. It was an uncomfortably modern building, all cheap stucco and mauve carpet, but the nuns who lived there carried the timeless spirit of the Holy Demotic Church in their hearts.

One day, Mother Superior Elen di Pecora took a walk on the four sidewalks in town and saw that a large number of unhoused people had set up tents and cardboard shelters throughout the alleyways behind the fast-food restaurants and the singular big box store in town. She returned to the convent with sorrow in her heart.

"My sisters!" she said to the gathered nuns. "How the people of our fair town suffer! Surely, in the spirit of charity as described by our Lord, we can provide for them in some way. We should use our labor and our means to provide for these people!"

"We can knit clothes and blankets to warm them!" suggested Sister Konn.

"Ah, but we live in California, where the weather stays mild in winter and sweltering in summer. What need have they for thick blankets and coats here?" rejoined Sister Cvari.

"We can construct houses for them!" suggested Sister Myeonyang.

"Ah, but we live in California, where real estate developers rule with an iron hand and have a long memory. Do we want to make enemies with those who in five years time will be our politicians?" rejoined Sister Schaff.

"My sisters," said Mother Superior di Pecora, "we should serve them food. But we should serve them food that is filling and can provide them with ample energy, something comforting and cheerful and warm. Let us build a charity pizza kitchen."

The nuns quickly got to work, converting a corner of their convent into a pizza kitchen, putting together a large wood-fired stove and sourcing flour and cheese and tomatoes. Mother Superior di Pecora began finding experienced pizza chefs who could help guide their first efforts at making pizza. She asked around at several restaurants, and found that chefs that were friendly and supportive, but most of them were reluctant to leave their jobs: pizza in California was a _very_ popular food, and the nuns could pay at most a meager stipend that would not cover their expensive seaside rent.

Eventually, though, Mother Superior di Pecora found a small number of chefs who were willing to help, and it didn't take long for her to understand why: these chefs were all left-leaning radicals, politically, and were willing to sacrifice to help those around them. Every single one of them said the word "praxis" at least four times during their conversations with Mother Superior, although she did not fully understand what they meant by that. Eventually, she gathered three of them and convinced them to come to the convent and show the nuns there the process of pizza-making.

To begin with, they resolved that the three chefs would test out the suitability of the kitchen by making a batch of pizzas for the nuns of the monastery. The three chefs arrived early in the morning and found a beautiful kitchen with a wood-fired oven and ample space for kneading dough and preparing pizzas. The nuns retreated elsewhere in the convent, already salivating over the prospect of the pizzas that would be made there.

Three hours later, Mother Superior di Pecora returned to the kitchen to see how the food was progressing. To her chagrin, she saw that the flour had been opened and a few tomatoes had been sliced, but that was all: no dough had been finished, no cheese had been shredded, no sauce had been simmering. Instead, the three chefs stood at the center of the kitchen and engaged in a heated conversation.

"It's impossible for the true governance of the proletariat to come out of these paltry intermediate steps," one of them was saying angrily. She smashed her fist down onto the counter. "These half-steps are simply liberalism in a radical guise. You see, Bakunin says—"

"Bakunin, Bakunin, Bakunin!" another chef said. "You cannot fix the problems of the state by doing away with states, any more than you can fix a meal by going hungry. You see, Trotsky would say—"

"Trotsky! Pah!" the third chef spat. "I cannot fault Trotsky's analysis, but with the benefit of hindsight, and the work of Lenin and Mao, we could move past such simplistic and puerile—"

"What is going _on_ here?" Mother Superior di Pecora interjected, and the three chefs turned and stared. They then all simultaneously pointed at one another and began speaking over one another, each accusing the others of being dangerous and naïve counter-revolutionaries who failed to understand the correct mode of leftist thought. Mother Superior once again tried to get them to calm down, but they were too deep in debate to notice her, and she threw her hands in the air in disgust and walked outside.

To the south of the convent was a garden shared with a monastery nearby, and there she found Abbot Caora deep in thought. She approached him nervously, and he turned and smiled.

"Abbot Caora," she said quietly. "I am afraid I must ask you for help in an odd situation."

"What is it, Mother Superior di Pecora?" he asked. She told the story: about the unhoused people and the desire to help, about the idea of the pizza kitchen, about the well-meaning radicals they had recruited and how they were unable to stop bickering. Abbot Caora listened patiently, and when she reached the end of her story, he nodded.

"I understand your dilemma. It is a classic tale."

"A classic tale?" she asked. "Really? I would never have imagined that this sort of thing has happened before."

"My dear," he said kindly, "by now, _everyone_ knows the story of Nun Pizza with Left Beef."