This is day one of a six day series expressing my time, day by day, spent in silent retreat at Abbey of Gesthemani, December 10-17.
My view is out slightly dirty windows, into a late autumn garden. Statues of St Francis, A mother and child, others I am sure are saints but can not distinguish which, pepper the view. Two Adirondack chairs, assumingely left to weather out the winter, perch over a stone wall; again assumingely, looking down on the paths and additional gardens below.
Most notably though, is the sign just in front of my sightline: No Talking in These Gardens.
Nothing unusual when you find yourself at the Abbey of Gesthemani for a silent retreat.
I’ve come intent on finding something. Or, finding something out.
I’ve come to suspect, just barely begun though, that I will have none of that. I have a growing notion, I am here to simply settle into a grand undoing that will, with a great deal of hope and faith, evidence the ‘something’ I thought would show up here.
As if…..
I can’t set this stage, no matter how much I want to design it.
I think we are brought to a reckoning point in life. For those who let down their guard, just enough mind you-you’re not asked to run naked through the streets-just enough, something slips in we were not at all expecting…
For me this reckoning is happening in layers. In bits of time over time, as my life unfolds. I wrap it all up in God, spirit, spirituality, the higher self, the intuitive knowing; whatever I call it on any given day, it is this sense of something much greater than all of my planning and scheduling and organizing and idea-projecting. It is entirely outside myself and yet, completely within me.
Can I stop making sense now?….
And yet, we are not brought to this point unprepared. We are not called up before our time…
I somehow had just enough in me to take a deep breathe and say ‘okay, I’ll listen’…
Cancel.
Stop.
Cease.
There was only space for being.
When John and I contemplated moving to Lexington, KY from our Seattle roots, I jokingly said ‘if there is a Trader Joe’s, I’ll go’.
I speculate though, perhaps this place is some of my ‘why’.
I have been a long time admirer of Thomas Merton’s work. He did the deep stuff of spiritual exploration. I don’t always agree with his convictions of Christianity-regardless of my Catholic roots-but I do identify with so much of his angst; with his impassioned drive to say something with his life; with his determination to find his best form of expression and live it out richly.
This is my second visit to the Abbey of Gesthemani, only an hour, give or take, from my Lexington castle. I suspect it wont be my last. But if it is, it will be because I’ve found what I am looking for. I have plunged to the depth of what it is that is rising in me, and I’ve come out with my (new?) way of being.
The bells toll now for None, the 2:15pm Liturgy of the hour. There are seven of such, beginning at 3:15am and ending at 7:30pm. This rigorous scheduling, the intense control of thought and action the bells tolling signify, is too much for me. I’ve long suspect it was for Merton as well. -That the Abbey was an escape for him, in the only way he knew how at the time…
I could so easily follow suit.
And yet the hyper-scheduling and intensity of control that this environment imparts on those choosing to live here is too much. It is the very thing, at least this week, that I am most necessitating the removal from. It is one of the very things I feel from which I am called away; the rigidity of control…
So I listen to the bells toll, appreciating their intentions, using them as a grace-point to say a quick prayer; Thank you God that my self that is better than this self, is here now, listening, and You can find me ready when what it is I am here for, descends.
I am willing.
And, I get to. Still. Even when it is a great
nothing.
in love.
trish