Sister Bennie Dixon

Mistress of the Quill

Joining the Abbey of Magnificent Intentions was a homecoming for me. This public display of absurdity makes more sense when you learn that my mother was a clown and my father a pastor. I learned to apply clown white at a young age, as they participated in street theatre as a member of a Christian mime troupe. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic I was looking for an intergenerational community of queer people who were supporting local issues and being visibly gender-nonconforming. After seeing the sisters at events across the United States, I “received the call” from an ecstatic vision of a psychedelic drag nun roller-blading down the Pride Parade and joined the Order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in 2021. (In June of 2022, my ecstatic vision became a reality!)

I had seen the Sisters at gatherings and the sister’s mode of manifestation was attractive. It appeals to my sense of how we can use our bodies to upset expectations of convention and create opportunities for change in our relationships and communities. I have witnessed many times in my life how manifesting the divine’s eternal and unconditional love often achieves miracles. 

If you see me out in the streets, come and share a laugh with me! Celebrating the hilarity of the absurd and luxuriating in life’s simple pleasures is part of how I fulfil my vow to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.