roots at the base of a Sycamore
Before the silence enters your life at Wernersville, there is a last supper of conversation:
1. I am recognized as the dude who drew cards for retreatants in the past. I clearly say it won't be happening. There are designs I want to work on and I didn't enjoy trying to distribute the cards. But a seed is planted and that evening grows into an idea and experiments, which will lead to 47 bookmarks. The idea: Use a network. If I gave the bookmarks to my spritual director and she gave them to the other directors and they gave them to their directees....
And so I timed it out and with date in hand I figured that I clearly could make 47 bookmarks without affecting my retreat and the art I had planned to do.
2. A woman at the table is about to leave a job with no clear path forward. I pray for her and as the retreat goes on I will stumble into her at the billiards table and a yoga class... and I wonder if I will ever have a conversation with her again. Since I am leaving early, I will not be at the last breakfast when we can "legally" converse again. But when I pass by her on my last evening, I break silence long enough to wish her well.
3. I mention that I teach science and the conversation turns towards the creation of the world and the Big Bang Theory. That night I remember that the Big Bang Theory emerged from the mind of a Catholic Priest. The only time I get on a computer for a week is to look up his name. I write the name on a piece of paper and silently hand it to a dude during a quite supper. The scientist, while not a Jesuit, did have some Jesuit teachers early in his life. and the recipient of the piece of paper has silently reentered my life at facebook.
...
I love the image of the silence entering into you, rather than the opposite. I always thing of it as my action, walking in, as opposed to God's action, pulling me in...
ReplyDeleteAnd the design that arose that I've seen is soaked in that grace!
I like the descriptions of the retreats you describe. Any that I have been on were far more structured. Sister Mary Alice barely gave me time to get the required readings done! You can laugh, I actually quit going as they got too stressful :-) It's interesting to me how your recipient connected with you on Facebook, so quietly.
ReplyDeleteMichelle--- that design will get its own special post once you journey to Japan. Thanks so much for the special commissions. I thrive on them.
ReplyDeleteKwee-- sad to hear of the stress. I am blessed to have found a retreat style that matches my spirit quite well.