April 21, 2007
Saturday

I want to live where soul meets body,
And feel the sun wrap its arms around me,
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing,
And feel what it’s like to be new.
                — Ben Gibbard, b. 1976
                    American singer-songwriter

A silent, directed retreat is designed to help you open yourself to deeper and essentially private transactions with God. It is probably antithetical to the spirit of such an endeavor to post to your blog during the experience. And maybe even to write publicly about it at all, since some people don’t want to read such material. Someone once wrote to tell me that she no longer read my stuff because my “strong Christian beliefs” were overbearing. While it’s probably accurate to say that I have strong beliefs (about most things), I didn’t think I wrote about my spiritual life enough to be overbearing, nor did I think the ways in which I sometimes refer to matters of faith could be construed as preachy or intrusive.

I’ve been coming to this facility since 1982. (If you go there, click on About Us and then on Buildings and Grounds to see pictures, especially the view of the south lawn.) The adjoining German Reformed cemetery is the spot where my historical novel was born. That was in 1983, when I came for a program called “Dealing with Your Hurt, Anger, and Guilt,” something I’d signed up for during the emotionally difficult months of my divorce. By the weekend of the program I’d met Ron and was looking for discernment about whether marrying him was a good idea. (I’d already decided it was, and a message from God to the contrary would have had to have been fairly dramatic to get my attention.) In the fall of 1984 I undertook a series of three weekends of directed prayer spaced three months apart. My goal then was discernment about starting a family. When I showed up for Weekend #3 I was clearly about five months pregnant. “Looks like you got an answer,” my director said.

I’m not going to go into detail here about the questions and concerns I’ve brought to this weekend’s study of the story of the woman at the well, found in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John. And it follows then that I won’t be detailing the inner events that transpire as a result of applying the ideas given in the presentations to my own practice.

What then to say? Why even mention where I am and what I’m doing? I’ll be here ten days. I’ve been silent in this space for much longer at other times.

Well, it gives me an excuse to quote Death Cab for Cutie. This is a place where soul meets body, a place where you can find the sun again if clouds have obscured its light, a place where you can feel new. (And the water is much better for hair washing than the heavy metal-laden stuff that pours out on me at home.) That’s worth something.

Today was productive and energizing. We had two sessions separated by time for processing the ideas in whatever way each found appropriate. I walked and then wrote after the morning session and then took a nap in the afternoon. This evening I got comfortable in the spot in the first floor library that I think will be mine for my two and a half days of fiction writing. I sat in a lounge chair beside a desk with a good light and a view of Hain’s Cemetery and worked on some knitting, and old hobby brought back to me recently with a new focus.

And I thought about the people in my life whom I love and care about. And I pictured their faces and said their names. And I felt what it’s like to be new.

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