Open-minded The Description of Carla

carries things that are far too heavy for her, to show her father how strong she is. She wants to be stronger than any boy around in the age. Even more, Carla proves it by challenging the boys to fight her so that she is considered as a superior among them. Her actions are also helpful for her brothers and sisters because she will fight anyone who hurts her brothers and sisters Van Raay 57. Besides, Carla regularly wins the annual running race organized by parents for the local kids. That Carla loves her father can be seen when she chooses the prizes of her win. She always chooses the things which her father can use. She feels to be meaningful at the moment when her father laughs and shows he is proud of her. Then, she feels very happy because of her father’s happiness. I just had to win for him, and the whole neighborhood seemed to know this too and cheered me on. Afterwards I would look up at him breathlessly, showing him the bottle of sherry or whatever that I’d chosen as a prize. I was white with anxiety and exhaustion: Now, Papa, will you think that I’m good enough? Now, will you respect me? I didn’t care that the prizes I’d chosen were things I couldn’t use myself – my papa could use them; that’s what mattered to my love-starved soul. He laughed, my papa did; he was proud of me. I was painting with pleasure and with an inexplicable pain in my heart Van Raay 58. Carla’s struggle to be a good child for her parents shows that Carla takes a valuing process of finding the meaning of life. She takes an experiential values as what Frankl 73 states that experiential values consists of conviction and experience to the value of the truth, the good deeds, the beautifulness, the spirit, the religion, and loving affection. In this case, Carla tries to find the meaning of life by feeling love and being loved by her parents since she is a good child.

b. Being a Good Nun for God

Carla’s struggle to find the meaning of life is obviously seen when she decides to be a nun. When she is thirteen, she thinks that she can find the meaning of life by having a very close relationship with God. Frankl 176 states that people can find the meaning of life by dealing with experiential values like having a close relationship with God. She pours out her heart to God in the church at playtime and lunchtime. She is sure that God must love her, while no one else does. She loves God even though she has never met God before. Her experiences of the value of religion bring glorious feeling to Carla. She loves God and feels beloved by God too. she creates an imaginary relationship that is her version of a relationship with the Divine. Then, it guides her to decide to be a nun one day, an ultimate lover of God Van Raay 82. Carla joins a convent at the virginal age of eighteen since her experiences of the value of her religion. In the convent, she transfers her needs of love to God by trying to be a good nun for God. Carla becomes a postulant, the first time she enters the convent. Pos tulant refers to ‘one who asks’. In this case, one who asks to be admitted to become a nun. It takes several months until she declares her willingness to be a bride of Christ in a ceremony, to which her parents and sisters attend. In the ceremony, every postulant wears a pseudo-wedding gown. After declaring, she is called as a young novice and then she wears new clothes, which is heavy black serge and white cap with a bonnet covers her head. At that time, she is very happy since becoming a nun makes her father proud of her.